The Magnussen Legacy
by O'Donnell
Summary: Suicide mission scrapped, Sherlock is brought back to solve a problem for England.. Because someone escaped the deadly chaos of Appledore intent on revenge. Magnussen may be dead, but still casts a long and dangerous shadow. Sherlock must find the killer and save them all. While John must find who Sherlock really is and save himself.
1. Chapter 1

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 1: Bad Blood

Sherlock Holmes is brought back from the mission and the exile that was to be punishment for killing Charles Augustus Magnussen before it even starts - to solve a problem for England. The problem turns out not to be the one expected.

For someone escaped the deadly chaos of Appledore, with a photograph in his hand, revenge in his heart and murder in his mind. Friends, relations and victims of Charles Augustus Magnussen find out the hard way that the man may be dead, but his influence still casts a long shadow.

While John Watson needs to win back everyone's trust and prove he still deserves to be at the party. So he sets out to solve another mystery altogether - who, and why, is William Sherlock Scott Holmes?

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The world is a circle without a beginning….or rather, this story begins and picks up without a pause straight from the end of _Things We Lost In The Flames._ Which itself was the backstory to, and lost scenes from, the S3Ep3 _His Last Vow_

To which this is the sequel; so if you have not read that, this will make very little sense at all. So go and read that first..

You've done that? OK, thank you. So now read on:

Chapter One, this chapter, therefore transits from the end of _His Last Vow_ through the contemporary scenes on board the plane from _The Abominable Bride_ and tries to make sense of the background to the complex wordplay therein, especially the depths of angst, subtext and strange relativity of conversation between Mycroft and Sherlock, which appears to encompass past events (and sadnesses) which only they know, and are never clarified or explained in the TV script.

So let's see if, in this story, we can cover this ground and begin to explain it!

This complete new story covers an intense narrow timeframe of several days between S3 and S4.

 **To repeat: Series Four is not part of this story. Nor does S4 foreshadow it in any way.**

 **One brief scene reference in the next chapter alludes to the only scene in S4 directly connected to content of S3 Ep3.**

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 _When Oblivion_

 _Is calling out your name,_

 _You always take it further_

 _Than I ever can._

 _(_ _Dan Smith: Oblivion)_

Sophocles got it right He might have died at the age of ninety one while trying to recite a long sentence without drawing breath, _the fool,_ but he still knew what he was talking about.

Oblivion. What a blessing for the mind to dwell on, a world away from pain. _Yes, that was what he had said. Too true. But why did he never explain how to find oblivion? And to stay safe in that oblivion once you have achieved it? So_ _ **think**_ _._

 _Ah, yes. There's more._

Acting as your own sovereign power, grant yourself oblivion for past offences. _I'm trying to! Like that one. Who actually said that?_

Oblivion covers old wounds. _Thank you, yes. New ones too. That's the idea._

Sleep is a bit of lovely oblivion. _Well, it would be…._

He had managed - despite the effort, despite the sweeties - to achieve far too little time away from the world in blessed oblivion, in what now seemed merely a momentary bliss of dreams and distance and rest.

Yet the world was dragging him back into it again, and far too soon. Hammering him over the head without respite. Pushing and shoving him back into consciousness, into clarity, and back again into a world of his own cleverness.

How he hated his own cleverness. When he wanted none of it. Not right now. Not yet.

 _Oh well. No rest for the wicked._

 _And I have been pitifully wicked. And wretched. Forgive me father, for I have sinned….I have killed and I have been killed. Is this my punishment, then? No rest nor respite? Not ever? Another sort of purgatory, is this?_

 _OK, then, if that is the only deal on offer, I accept it. Take it as some semblance of things getting back to normal if not taking it with gratitude. It could be death, after all. It certainly felt like death. Should be death._

 _So I must make the best of a bad deal. Play the game, not the hand._

"Well, a somewhat shorter exile than we'd imagined, Brother Mine. Although adequate given your levels of OCD."

 _Oh, great. The very last voice I wanted to hear_. _Can't you just bloody well stop revelling in my inadequacies, stop the carping? Just for once, Myc? Give me a break?_

Sherlock Holmes stared at his brother across the gangway of the little private jet, stared with empty and distracted glassy eyes. He could hear his own voice running away with him, but had no idea what he was saying…or why…or what about…..

 _Oh yes, Mind Palace stuff…._ _Newgate Calendar stuff…..Thomas Ricoletti and his abominable wife Emilia….that case…the bride who died, then came back. Killed her husband and conveniently died again. Been working on that puzzle in my head._

 _Why did I think of that one anyway? Oh yes - parallels. Moriarty apparently coming back from the dead. I definitely came back from the dead. Emilia seemed to have come back from the dead. Anything one can learn from all that?_

 _The world is a circle….Let's compare notes! . Hiya. Jim. Jim Boy…..No. Moriarty made me think of the case, but something else made me think of Ricoletti. Who? What? Think!_

 _Ricoletti. Rico…... Yes. Ah, yes. Rico. Enrico. Not Ricoletti. Rico. Enrico….something. Bolero? Dance, skating, music. No. Baillero. Song, French, sheep, No. Badass. Not quite. Ah! Yes! Baldissi. …Yes. That's it. Baldissi. Enrico Baldissi. Rico…._

 _John is talking. Mycroft is talking.. Now I am talking. What am I saying? Am I saying anything worth saying? Tune back in….._

He made an immense effort to see, to concentrate.

Mary. Still in that hideous bright red coat that hurts the eyes, plonked herself in the seat facing him, leaning forward. Looking at him with concern, her nurse's face on. Not what is needed now. No. Definitely not.

Mycroft sitting across the aisle. Peering at him with that big-brother-knows-best face. Disappointment and resignation screaming silently out of him.

 _Well, the grateful euphoria for keeping the wheels of the western world turning didn't last long, did it? Nor the assumed humility of calling me back to sort things out. Again._

 _Stopstopstop. Self pity, is it? Sentiment, even? I must be feeling unwell. That's what happens when you eat sweeties that mess with the mental pathways of the brain. And my pathways are a bit weird at the best of times._

 _Try being kind to me Mycroft, just for once. Think of that as an astonishing new ploy that might just work. But until then don't hassle me for dealing with all the woes of my world in the only way I know how._

 _After all, you were not supposed to be with me now, this minute. And I chose - while on my own - not to accompany myself either. So leave me alone and get over yourself._

Sherlock Holmes started to unclip his seat belt Wanting to get away, stop being looked at, release the pressure in his head. Looked up at his brother, at his best friend, his best friend's wife - all peering at him with concern. He could hear words dribbling out of him…something about Ricoletti and being in his Mind Palace to sort that problem out. Because that problem might be an indicator. Might not. Who could tell when interrupted mid thought?

 _Concentrate! Get a grip! You can overwhelm the sweeties if you concentrate and turn it into a mental game of leap frog. If you can be bothered. If it is worth it._

"Yes? So?" the voice he heard that did not quite seem to be his own was peevish, ragged. "It's been five minutes since Mycroft called."

 _It's more like twenty, but who's counting? Honestly?_

Turned his head to look up at his brother. A brother with a tight frown of concern, but artic eyes. "What progress have you made? What have you been doing?"

John Watson, standing in the aisle beside Mycroft, laughed, a touch bitterly.

"More to the point. What have you been doing?"

Sherlock Holmes sniffed, concentrated hard, tried his most haughty voice.

"I've been in my Mind Palace. Of course."

"Of course." John Watson nodded a little, replied as if he didn't believe a word of it, which caused his friend to glare at him and frown.

 _Kill someone and no-one trusts you any more. Disgraceful._

"Running an experiment," he explained with slow condescension. and even slower thought process. "How I would have solved the crime if I'd been there in 1895."

 _Simple when you say it out loud. Where's the problem? Hmmmn. Thoughts skittering away. Too many sweeties. Bit too much of a mixture….bit of a misfire._

"Oh, Sherlock."

Mycroft looked - sounded - angry, disappointed, and turned away. While Mary took Sherlock's phone from the shelf beside her and started looking at it with absorbed concentration and a small smile.

"I had all the details perfect."

 _Say it, say it because my brother doesn't want to hear about the Mind Palace and the Ricoletti's and a murder that has been a mystery for well over 100 years. A murder I could solve. Have I solved? Not just theorised? Had I nailed it?_

 _So I should tell him…convince him…that I haven't been idle for the last few minutes. That I was still working, even when I believed I was flying to my death. Because that's what I do for you, you bastard! Take the blame, carry the can, pull your irons out of the fire._

 _So stop resenting me for it. And the way I do it. Just because it isn't your way!_

"I was there. All of it. Everything. I was immersed."

 _Is it working? Is he finally understanding that I am truly doing my best? Even though my brain is not my own at the moment?._

"Of course you were." Patronising, disengaged. Judgmental. As ever.

"You've been reading John's blog. The story of how you met." Mary Watson looked up and spoke. A voice of calm, ignoring Mycroft, distracting Sherlock. Looked up and smiled into Sherlock's eyes; warm, candid, honest. The only person remotely on his side here? But he could not allow himself to be seduced by that.

He looked away, out of the window. More concrete. More bland grass. Nothing new. Except a small confession.

"Helps me if I see myself through his eyes sometimes. I'm so much cleverer…."

Frowned, realised that was open to misinterpretation, the exact opposite of the real meaning. Sounded arrogant, not humble. There are times to feel humble and now - tired, demoralised, off his head with sweeties - was the absolute time to feel humble and to be humble. To see the bottom, yet barely register that the only way from here should be up.

"You really think anyone's believing you?"

 _That twisted voice again. So Mycroft really has taken the wrong line. As usual. Give me a break, Myc._

"No, he can do this, I've seen it," John Watson spoke up in his defence, finally. Good, faithful John Watson. "The Mind Palace ,It's like a whole world in his head."

"Yes, and I need to get back there."

 _Well. In a manner of speaking. Leave me alone, Let me think! Why do none of you ever let me think?_

Sherlock's voice was unequivocal. Taking refuge in 1895 was easier than facing Mycroft here and now; Mycroft at his most waspish. Mycroft who a few minutes ago had been begging for his help.

"The mind palace is a memory technique," Mycroft explained to John Watson, sharply condescending while ignoring his brother now." I know what it can do, and I know what it most certainly cannot."

"Maybe there are one or two things that I know and you don't," Sherlock returned, stung. The sense of betrayal by his brother was very strong suddenly. And tasted bitter. He tried to repress the telltales; no stimming. No breaking out in anger….

But mental exhaustion threatened. By the thought that the goodwill he had won so hard by taking down Magnussen,- and dared to think he might have also earned by agreeing to return to tackle the Moriarty problem - was goodwill that might have lasted for no more than ten minutes.

Thought - had even dared to hope - that at some point he might finally have earned some brownie points and be given the benefit of the doubt. Not praise, never praise. Just acceptance, acknowledgement, recognition of the facts.

All he had been through, all he had done….he had even wilfully stepped over the precipice to be called back from exile at the last minute. Pulled himself back up the cliff and defied gravity.

Yet even now nothing had changed. Still scorned, denigrated, still misunderstood, then. He was used to it, expected nothing else. But just sometimes….he looked away and tried to keep the anger down. But the sweeties had lowered both his tolerance and his self control, and he knew it.

"Oh, there are," Mycroft agreed tartly, years of experience buried in those three simple words. And then in a different tone of voice: " Did you make a list?"

Sherlock Holmes looked away, back out of the window again, his agitation betrayed by wild, quickly hooded eyes, his chewed thumbnail.. Deep breaths - _control control control_ \- then turned back to face his tormentor.

"Of what?"

"Everything Sherlock. Everything you've taken."

The little brother rolled his eyes and turned his head away. Turning his tears away.

It is always the role of an older brother to torment the younger. And Mycroft was very good at it.

John Watson was watching the exchange between the two closely. He knew how they bickered and point scored. But this was something else, something different. Something older and closer to home, something he did not understand. He just knew that both brothers were hurting, and Mycroft must have just said something significant, because something had happened to upset Sherlock, who was now hurting worst of all.

What had Mycroft said that had brought such misery to the surface?

"No, no, it's not that," he interjected, wanting to break the glare between the two men that seemed to be creating it's own static electricity. "He goes into a sort of trance. I've seen him do that."

Even as he spoke he realised Mycroft was not listening to him, all concentration on his brother. And Sherlock was not looking or listening to him either. Sherlock who then, without comment, took a folded sheet of pale grey writing paper from his breast pocket, held it out towards Mycroft and then, eyes holding his brother's, dropped it onto the floor with a lazy insolence bordering on disdain.

Mycroft looked across at John Watson with no expression whatsoever, and it was Watson who stooped to pick up the list. He unfolded it, recognising the cramped tiny writing as Sherlock's, and began to read.

His face grew cold with shock at the variety and strength of pills on that list. Looked across at Sherlock with horror.

Mycroft sighed. Disillusioned, disappointed. As if he knew the contents of the list without even looking. Because the list was just history repeating itself, John Watson realised.

"We have an agreement, my brother and I. Ever since that day…." Somehow he omitted to mention what day, what pills, what shock and horror he was thinking of. And clearly was still haunted by. But Sherlock knew, and that was all that counted.

Sherlock did not answer or retaliate, merely bit his lip and said nothing. Eyes full of memories that threatened to overflow. If anyone took the trouble to look. And to see.

 _Nobody else's business, Myc. Not yours. Not even my only friend's business. Back off._

"Wherever I find him….whatever back alley or doss house …there will always be a list."

His voice was stronger, more disdainful, now. Complaint, was it? Or a sort of compliment? Pain or pride? This was Mycroft Holmes. It was impossible to tell.

Sherlock still did not speak, continued to worry his lip, closed his eyes and looked away. John Watson sat down heavily opposite Mycroft and gestured with the list. He, too, had experienced finding Sherlock Holmes in a drugs den. He knew the intense feeling of waste and frustration that must be consuming Mycroft.

"He couldn't have taken all of that in the last five minutes."

"He was high before he got on the plane," Mycroft's voice was cynical and certain, pitched slightly too high for the impression of arch indifference he was feigning.

Mary Watson, who had been scrolling through Sherlock's blog with a little smile playing on her lips, who had been paying no attention at all to the conversation around her, replaced Sherlock's phone where she had found it, and produced her own from her bag.

" He didn't seem high," John Watson demurred, uncertain of Mycroft's mood, what he did or did not know and what he would or would not say.

" No-one deceives like an addict." Mycroft's voice strove for supercilious dismissal. But sounded more like hurt pushed down and away.

"I'm not an addict," Sherlock Holmes' voice was curt, but his eyes and attention were elsewhere. And he spoke as if reciting a testament learnt years ago by rote; something empty and mechanical. "I'm a user. I alleviate boredom and occasionally heighten my thought processes….."

" For Gods sake! This could kill you. You could die."

John Watson's voice was full of horror. Anger. That terrible sense of waste. Sherlock Holmes turned calm, unmoved eyes to him and slid them away again.

 _I know. Why would I not know? Doctor!_

John Watson did not hear the words, but he felt them as strongly as if Sherlock Holmes had shouted them. Saw the eyes flare directly at him for a second, then die back.

"Controlled usage is not usually fatal, and abstinence is not immortality." The same empty phrasing.

Mycroft, frustrated by the exchange, saw Mary Watson was taking no interest in that at all, and turned to her, irritated and craving distraction.

"What are you doing?"

"Emilia Ricoletti. I'm looking her up."

" Ah. I suppose we should …."

Sherlock rolled his eyes but said nothing.

"I have access to the top level of the MI5 archive," Mycroft for once sounded more helpful than arrogant.

"Yep, that's where I'm looking." She didn't even bother to look up as she spoke.

"What do you think of MI5's security?" he asked with polite precision. As if to prove the point that he had things, more important things, to think about other than his troublesome little brother. As if anyone else needed to know that, or would believe it.

"I think it would be a good idea," she responded, lightly critical, concentration elsewhere. And read out: "Emilia Ricoletti - unsolved."

 _I did tell you all that in the first place! Why does no-one ever listen to me?_

Sherlock lowered his head and put it into his hands. Spaced out. Drained physically and mentally by drugs and crippling anti climax. Exhausted in body and spirit. Mary nodded her approval of him, her wordless sympathy and her silent agreement.

"Like he says…."

Sherlock lifted his head again then to listen to her , but still with eyes closed.

"Could you all just shut up for five minutes? I have to go back." Vexed, stressed, impatient. "I was nearly there - before you stepped on board this plane and started yapping away."

"Are we interrupting your session?" Watson snapped, sarcastic. As if he had borrowed the tone and the mood from Mycroft.. While Mycroft, equally stressed, spoke with the distressed timbre John Watson normally used when he ran out of alternatives.

"Sherlock, listen to me…."

"No, it only encourages you." The answer snapped back, swift and harsh, quicker than thought.

"I'm not angry with you."

This was not the sort of thing Mycroft Holmes normally said. Nor the tone of voice he usually employed. John Watson watched with sharpened interest; positive he had missed something this time. What was going on here between the brothers that he neither knew nor understood?

Sherlock Holmes half rose out of his seat as if goaded beyond endurance. Goaded by such placatory words? How? Why? But he controlled himself and sat back without a word. John Watson looked from one brother to the other, hoping one of them would explain…..

 _Pleading now, Mycroft? With me? What have I done to deserve that? What have you done to feel guilty about now, brother mine? "._

But he knew really. Really he knew.

In that bare holding cell at Paddington Green they had stood and faced each other.

Mycroft had come to deliver the verdict on his fate. Not knowing Elizabeth, Lady Smallwood, had already told Sherlock Holmes what was going to happen.

He dropped an overnight bag at his brother's feet.

"Fresh clothing. Suit and so forth. You have been in the same garments all week. Will want to look smart for departure."

"Touching of you to care," Sherlock said, politely unimpressed. "Although you are no doubt more concerned about the image I might present to the world and how that would impact upon you if I appeared in public sweaty and crumpled."

Mycroft opened his mouth to deny, but then decided to do so would prompt more opprobrium, so merely twisted his mouth in anger and swallowed it. The boy had been sorely tempted to retaliate. And it could have been worse. Let it go…

"We do not feel imprisonment and punishment are appropriate reparation for your unauthorised murder of Charles Augustus Magnussen," Mycroft said.

"Really? Even though you sound like the hanging judge at a children's party?"

"Sherlock….."

"I know, Mycroft. 'Be a good boy, Sherlock. Take your medicine, Sherlock. Take your punishment like a man.' Heard it all before."

"Sherlock…."

"You wouldn't kill me. You won't send me to jail. So what do you want me to do to demonstrate my contrition? Clearly not wear sackcloth and ashes - he flung a gesture towards the luxury of the clean clothes - " Should I write a thousand lines - 'I must not murder nasty men who want to blackmail my brother'? "

"Stop it! Just stop it. That's not fair….."

"Oh, really? Which of us has been in this rat hole for the past week?"

"Which of us is a murderer?"

"Someone had to do it. And just because you usually send others to do the dirty work does not mean you have no blood on your hands!"

"At least it's not your blood!"

"You don't have to tell me that. Or remind yourself." He pulled a breath and self control. "Stop torturing yourself. I don't appreciate it. I never have."

They glared at each other. Sherlock was the first to look away, to turn his back, to strip and change his clothes, bundling the dirty garments into the overnight bag.

"I already know I am undertaking a suicide mission. The one we originally discussed on Christmas Day." The cool voice pre emptied what Mycroft was about to say, and his voice gave nothing away. Facing into the corner as Sherlock was, Mycroft could not see any expression. "I hope you are satisfied, for once."

Mycroft heard the bitter words spoken so neutrally, and had no answer. All he could see at that moment were the scars his brother had brought with him from Serbia, and shoulder blades that stood out too harshly in a frame too thin. The view brought his brain to an appalled halt.

Mycroft Holmes took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. This was harder than he had expected.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock. Sorry there is nothing we can do to punish that is good enough for you. But a court case and a guilty verdict would serve no purpose except expose too many people, too many situations, even more national secrets.

"Obviously there would never be a death sentence. Putting an IPP in place on you would have no grounds, and cause it's own problems, The mission is a clear and visible penance. Controlled and private. Sackcloth and ashes indeed."

"And you had to support that, did you?"

"If there had been an alternative, any other way to wipe your slate clean….."

"Don't apologise to me, I've told you before. I can't bear it. I knew what I was doing when I shot Magnussen and I would do it again.. I had no alternative, and I understood the consequences. That I must die as a result.

"Understood that more clearly than you, obviously. Because you stopped the SF squad shooting me. You should not have done that. You have created this situation, not me."

He risked a glance. Mycroft had bent his head and looked away. Admission indeed.

"Sadly for you, I am not an angel of death nor a victim of my own impulsive nature. I did what I had to do."

"If you say so."

"I know so. And so do you. So does Lady Smallwood. Doing what had to be done does not make me a hero, merely an instrument. So let's get on with it, shall we?"

He straightened his jacket, clean and tidy again, and strode to the cell door, Waited for his brother to knock so they could both be allowed out. This time.

Mycroft Holmes shook his head to dispel the memory.

 _Whatever is he saying now?_ _Some meaningless rubbish about not being angry with me? Well, bully for good old Mycroft._

"Oh that's a relief. I was really worried. No…. hold on… I really wasn't."

"I was there for you before. I'll be there for you again."

Into a sharp shattering silence even the Watsons could feel, the brothers looked at each other. Another internal exchange. Neither backing down. Mycroft on the edge of apology but not yielding. Sherlock on the edge of anger but not revealing.

"I'll always be there for you," Mycroft persisted. Sincere, out of character. Not knowing how to make things right with his brother when this time it was more important than ever. To make things right…in case he never saw him again, in case his fear for his little brother overpowered him. In case the stew of drugs he had taken might still overwhelm him.

Trying to say that he really did know how much he owed his little brother. Just that the job he did made objectivity vital, all encompassing. Unyielding. "This was my fault."

He braced himself for the outburst in response to that admission. An admission, he realised belatedly, he should have made days - weeks - ago. Expected all the anger, the invective, the verbal abuse, the scorn that he deserved. But it did not come.

"It was nothing to do with you."

Dismissive words, tired, unanswerable, with eyes turned away and apparently bored with this conversation. Something inside Mycroft bled a little. Sherlock turning away, refusing to engage, giving him forgiveness, showing he understood his brother's position. Telling him with silence, in the only way he could, that he was not blamed, but forgiven.

That the past still impacted upon the present, and it should not. That the sadness and guilt Mycroft always carried with him - how he had failed his baby brother when that baby brother had most needed him - achieved nothing. That he always felt the weight of it as much as his brother dismissed it. Something that had shaped their past and something they both recoiled from.

Too much damage this time, Mycroft registered. Sherlock had been allowed too much time to suffer.

"A week in a prison cell… I should have realised….." he stuttered, and stopped himself from giving himself away even more than he already had. This was ridiculous! He never stuttered!

"Realised what?" Two words that were a major concession, almost an apology in themselves. Recognition too, not just a question.

"That in your case solitary confinement is locking you up with your worst enemy."

Sherlock sighed and rolled his head back into the rest.

"Oh for gods sake!" he cried. And buried his head in one hand.

From somewhere in the subconscious came words he had heard so often before….

" _Morphine or cocaine?"_

 _In real life or his Memory Palace? Or just that constant nag of conscience always beating in his head?_

"What did you say?" looked up and frowned at John Watson, sitting opposite.

"I didn't say anything."

"No you did, you said - 'which is it today: morphine or cocaine?'"

Sherlock stared at John Watson, who stared back, looked confused. While Mycroft sat up and peered at his brother again.

All the lights seemed to go out and Sherlock Holmes slumped down in his seat. Cold, and sweating and unconscious.

"John . Quickly. Attend to him."

"He's in a drug stupor. Surely you can see that?" John Watson snapped. "And he clearly does not want attending to. He wants…" he remembered Sherlock Holmes words; from the hospital, from Appledore, from times in between. And added, in something like anguish, "….oblivion."

"Well he bloody well isn't going to get it!" Mycroft Holmes surged to his feet with an urgent outburst worthy of his brother. "Bring him round! Get him back! Whatever you have to do!"

"Jesus, Mycroft! I'm not a miracle worker. And I don't even have my emergency bag with me….."

He leapt to his feet to drop the seat back so Sherlock could lie flat. Took his pulse and when Mary wordlessly passed him a little packet of emergency wet wipes from her handbag, he took the sweat off the strained face, murmuring all the while.

"Sherlock…come back to me. Back to us…..fight this….come on, we need you awake and thinking…Come on, wake up, It's John….."

Sherlock jerked awake, opened glassy unfocussed eyes, pupils dilated. After a moment he came to properly, recognised John Watson leaning over him looking worried, one hand on the headrest as if about to reach out and soothe the tormented head. Mary Watson stood behind him, waiting to react, Mycroft hovering and attempting to both watch intently but also appear disinterested.

"Miss me?" Sherlock asked with a too knowing smirk; not quite himself, the voice not quite in register.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes of course I am." Irritation in the voice, a frown. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"'Cause you probably just OD'd. You should be in hospital." Mary Watson's voice was human and concerned, not medical and brisk. It would have warmed his heart if he had let it.

"No time." He started to get up. "I have to go to Baker Street now. Moriarty's back."

The surge of energy that got him to his feet failed him suddenly. He stumbled, and almost landed on his knees in the aisle at Mycroft's feet. Pulled back with a disconcerting wobble, shook his head gently - trying to regain sense and balance, and not faint again.

"I almost hope he is if he saves you from this," His brother's voice was low and oddly flat and sincere.

This was the last thing Sherlock wanted to hear. As Mycroft wordlessly held up his little brother's list as some concrete and final proof of sadness and disappointment, Sherlock refused the dumb show, snatched the sheet from Mycroft's hand and, eyes locked with those of his brother, storm grey to ice blue, tore up that vital list and defiantly dropped it on the floor.

"No need for that now," he snapped briskly, referring to both the list and the pills rattling around his head still, averting his eyes "I've got the real thing. I have work to do."

It sounded like the old incisive intelligence, the old energy. But he was wobbly still, and he knew it. Stepped forward to leave the plane, but Mycroft checked him.

"Sherlock…." More placatory now, almost beseeching. Highly unusual.

Sherlock Holmes slowly raised his eyes to his brother again. The expression was vaguely connecting to his brain, vaguely questioning. But not conceding anything.

"Promise me."

The two words were a plea and so softly spoken, John Watson barely recognised the tone of voice as Mycroft's at all.

He registered the brothers were again having one of their silent internal dialogues no-one else could even get close to or translate.

There was a tiny hitch of thought and breathing from both of them. Then Sherlock shook his head a little, looked away and round, then back to his motionless brother.

"What are you still doing here?" he asked, eyes suddenly focussing down, voice irked and angry. Deflecting. "Shouldn't you be off getting me a pardon or something,? Like a proper big brother?"

It was meant to be a barb, and as such it hit home. A rare touch that went through and behind Mycroft's armour. John Watson dared not look at the older brother's face, but Mary was staring, face calm and assessing. He would ask her later…

Sherlock seemed to make a decision, squared his shoulders and moved forward. Without a word of excuse or apology he buffeted Mycroft out of his way with his shoulder, and Mycroft visibly, consciously, let him.

Mycroft Holmes seemed to sag within himself, as if exhausted. Mary Watson sensed him close his eyes, drained and resigned. But still he said nothing, and the Watsons passed in front of him without comment on their way to the exit, in the wake of Sherlock.

The soft "Dr Watson," was barely above a whisper, but John Watson heard and turned back. There was only the two of them in the cabin now, and finally Mycroft Holmes could be honest and speak without reservation.

John Watson stood braced, chin raised, jaw fixed, waiting for something imperious, peremptory, cynically dismissive. As usual. But what he got were three words of appeal. Honest, simple, heartbreakingly real.

"Look after him…" Mycroft Holmes said despite himself; half plea, half command. And John Watson saw the hand gripping the umbrella handle until the knuckles were white, the hollow look in the eyes, the downturned mouth. And, most disturbingly then, a small but totally genuine smile. For him.

"Please…"

John Watson was so moved by this untypical and totally human behaviour that he could not speak. Merely gave a brief, firm, military nod, a salute with the eyes, and turned away and left the plane, down the steps and back onto the runway..

Did not see Mycroft stoop to pick up the pieces of the list, which he tucked between the pages of his pocket book.

o0o0o

"Hang on!" Watson called across the runway to the fast moving back of Sherlock Holmes, who was in the act of donning the Belstaff while crossing the concrete to the black limousine that had brought the Watsons to the airfield. "Explain!"

Sherlock Holmes shrugged the coat into place on his shoulders, turned back with a wicked grin on his face. Speed covering the fact he was still weak and not completely focussed.

"Moriarty's alive then?"

Stepped in closer to his friend. Who struggled with the coordination needed to take his gloves from the coat pocket.

"I never said he was alive. I said he was back"

"So he's dead?" It was Mary Watson who asked him to repeat the obvious. Obvious to him, anyway.

"Of course he's dead. He blew his own brains out. No-one survives that. I just went to the trouble of an overdose to prove it."

He grinned at them both, somewhere between bold and sheepish, and far from being in total control of either his words or thoughts.

The effects of the sweeties was still making his head swim, colours that looked too bright, voices that weren't quite in sync to his ears - while a voice that should have been his sounded weak, disembodied somehow.

"Moriarty is dead, No question. But more importantly….." he raised his head to avoid their sharp looks and even sharper words to declare: "I know exactly what he's going to do next."

He grinned, tipped off balance and only stayed upright by falling against the side of the car with a thump. Grinned even more.

"Not tipsy," he said sternly, more telling himself than John and Mary. But not sounding as if he much cared either way.

The grey suited driver - thickset, middle aged, grey hair cut _en brosse_ and in the process of holding the car door open for the three passengers - impassively put out a steadying hand which somehow managed to swing Sherlock Holmes loosely round in a half circle.

"Oh! Hello!"

Sherlock Holmes lurched forward and round and suddenly sounding like an eager small boy, gave the driver a huge smile and put up a hand to touch - to stroke even - the driver's face.

The Watsons exchanged puzzled looks at such untypical behaviour. Put it down to the drugs in his system.

The driver repressed a smile and simply put out his other hand and caught Sherlock as he fell, effortlessly posted him through the car door and onto the back seat in one fluid movement, and spoke as he did so:

"I think he will need propping up, Doctor Watson. One of you either side, I think?"

The logic was indisputable, and they moved to comply.

With Mary on one side of the semi conscious consulting detective and John on the other, the car sped back towards London.

Husband and wife looked at each other across the body between them.

Sherlock Holmes was slumped in the middle, eyes half closed, humming a little tune to himself. The sweat was standing on his skin again and he looked grey.

"Sherlock? You OK?" Mary Watson's voice was pure nurse. Low, concerned, professional interest. She had her hand on his wrist; a racing pulse, but she knew he could have been worse.

"Oh, hello Mary! What you doing here? Wheresa plane gone? Oh. Car. Yes. Too many sweeties, sorry. Supposed to be in mid air to Eastern Europe by now you know. Flying to fly. Makes sense."

He had turned to her and was smiling ingenuously at her. She couldn't resist smiling back.

"Where we going? Going home? That's good. Home, James!" he giggled and waved his hands expansively. Flopped about a bit. Caught the eye of the driver through the rear view mirror.

"He OK?" the driver asked.

"He will be. Despite appearances to the contrary, he knows exactly what he has taken and his physical responses to it," John Watson replied grimly. "He's done this before. Not his fault the four hours of oblivion he had anticipated got interrupted."

He put a hand fondly onto Sherlock Holmes's knee, his anxiety, fear and despair quietening now. "He'll be OK. Sleep and black coffee. His usual cure-alls."

"Thank you, Dr Watson," responded the driver quietly and paid attention to the road again.

"But where are we going?" Mary Watson asked, reasonably enough.

"Back to your home, Madame. I collect you, I return you. All part of the service."

There seemed no more to say.

Occasionally the Watsons smiled at each other and made a comment as Sherlock hugged his drug haze to him; and they braced him carefully around corners so he did not fall to either side.

At one point he did slide down sideways as the Rolls took an unexpected hard left and ended up with his head in John Watson's lap. Watson absently put his hand on the dark sweaty head and curved his hand around the skull to stop the head bouncing.

The grazes on the right side of the face had all but gone now, but that face was too pale and gaunt, and it hurt Watson's heart to see it. So the head stayed where it was for several miles until Sherlock seemed to come to with a convulsive jerk and a yelp. before sitting bolt upright, realising he was in a car with John and Mary Watson and he was safe. But then sitting too upright and too tense, rocking gently, hands firmly held between his knees to stop them shaking.

"You all right, sir?" asked the driver with sharply spoken solicitude, looking back into the rear of the car far too often to be comfortable.

"I told you. Never call me 'sir.' " For the moment the old curt authority was back and the head snapped up to underline the words..

"My apologies, Mr Holmes."

"Nor that, either. Makes me sound as if I'm Mycroft. I'm not Mycroft. Thank God."

The drivers lips twitched, but he said no more.

Finally, the car drew gently to a stop outside the Watson's front door.

The driver stepped out of the car and opened the rear door on Mary's side, helping her onto the pavement with a solicitous professional smile and a strong supporting arm. But when John got out on the offside and moved around the car and onto the pavement to reach in for Sherlock, he found the solid bulk of their driver barring his way.

"No, sir."

The two words were softly spoken, but there was a sudden military snap of authority in the voice and the stance that had not been there before, and Watson recognised that. Braced his own shoulders and there was suddenly too much testosterone standing on one square foot of pavement.

"He needs looking after," John Watson said, calmly but firmly, army captain manner back in place. "As well as his friend, I am his doctor. And my wife is a nurse. He knows us, and he knows our home. We are the best people to look after him until he recovers from this overdose."

"Yes, Dr Watson. I do understand your reasoning. And I understand that you would want to look after your friend. Highly commendable. But he is coming with me."

"No, he's not."

"Yes he is. Sir."

The quiet voice came with a quiet smile, but had hardened. The chauffeur put a hand to the smaller man's left shoulder, gripped and twisted and brought John Watson softly and efficiently to his knees.

"Fuck!" The pain in the scar of the old rifle wound was excruciating, and Watson dimly recognised that this man was no mere driver; this was someone who not only knew exactly who he was, but also where and how to hurt him.

"There's a good officer." The quietness of the words were suddenly full of menace, and the chauffeur did not raise his eyes from John Watson as he almost negligently put out his other hand to stop Mary Watson - subtly different in body language now, pregnancy or no pregnancy - as she came instinctively to his aid.

"I don't think so, Mrs Watson. I would hate to have to subdue a pregnant woman. Such a heavily pregnant woman, too. You really would not like that level of agra - vation, now would you? "

The very deliberate play on words used her code name - AGRA - and she stopped in her tracks, face suddenly pale and more than wary.

"Who are you?" she asked, hoarse, stricken, and John Watson stopped breathing while they both awaited the answer.

"Why, a mere chauffeur, Madame. Lady Smallwood's chauffeur."

"Who's Lady Smallwood?" asked John Watson automatically.

The chauffeur lifted a calm and professionally bland look towards the two of them. Helped John Watson efficiently and without fuss back to his feet.

"Oh. You _are_ out of the loop, aren't you, Dr Watson?" He paused, flickered a glance at the motionless figure still in the car. "Mr Holmes has not told you anything, has he? Does he not trust you any more, sir? "

John Watson struggled to find his feet, mentally and physically, fighting the rush of blood to the head those words caused, and the chauffeur let him. Shocked at the echo of Mycroft Holmes' very words on the runway, while waiting for Sherlock's flight to return home.

And he was more than worried now.

"And which Mr Holmes is that, smart arse?" The words forced their way past a clenched jaw and barely suppressed fear and fury.

"Looks like both of them to me. Sir," the driver observed mildly.

John Watson braced himself against the implied double insult and demotion. And stood firm.

"Sherlock is my concern right now. And Mycroft asked me to look after him."

"Yes, sir. But my orders are to take him elsewhere. And the authority I have is in this case superior to Mr Holmes' senior. I am sure you still understand what a chain of command is."

"Who are you?" It was John Watson's turn to ask.

"Not that it will be of any help to you, sir, but my name is George Bradshaw."

"I don't know you. Sherlock has never mentioned you to me. And I can't let him be taken away by someone I don't know - someone he doesn't know."

The older man in the elegant grey suit, apparently now ignoring John Watson, had bent and leaned into the car, taking Sherlock gently by the shoulders, tipping him carefully to lie him down across the long rear seat and guiding his head onto a folded travelling rug while tucking the Belstaff around him like a blanket.

Sherlock was unresisting, loose limbed, vaguely smiling. So very unlike his usual self neither of the Watsons could take their eyes off him in a sort of fearful fascination.

"He will be fine," said George Bradshaw in such a pragmatic way it did not sound reassuring. "Don't worry."

"I'm worrying already," Watson replied shortly. "I don't know you from Adam. How can I let you just drive off with my friend when you don't even know him?"

"Did I say I don't know him?" George Bradshaw stood upright. Turned his head back to the interior of the car. Raised his voice.

"Mr Holmes, sir. Could you tell Dr Watson who I am?"

Sherlock opened his eyes.

"Bradshaw. George. Ex-Colour. And will you fucking well stop calling me 'sir'? How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Sherlock! This man wants to take you away with him….."

"'Course he does. Rescues me. Good at it."

Another whoozy smile. A vague flap of a hand. Eyes closed. John Watson stared at the man who had just shot a look of such solicitude towards the consulting detective it stopped in his throat whatever he had just been about to say.

"Convinced now?" The man Sherlock had just confirmed as George Bradshaw had his hand on the rear door ready to close it, and to leave.

John Watson hesitated, lifted a hand, not knowing quite why. And suddenly the driver smiled. He had realised the Watsons had acquiesced and would finally let him drive away with his disputed cargo.

"If it makes you feel better, sir, I am at liberty to tell you that I knew Sherlock before he was Sherlock. When he was still William."

"I didn't even know his name was William until a couple of hours ago. How could I not already know that? What's that all about?"

For a moment Bradshaw's expression softened.

"Not my place to say," he replied levelly. "You need to ask him. But don't be offended when he won't tell you."

He shut the door and moved round the back of the car to the driver's side, and took his place behind the wheel.

"Don't fret, sir. He will be returned to Baker Street safe and sound tomorrow, when he is over this."

The driver sketched a salute, and John Watson returned it before he even realised that was what he was doing.

He put his hand on the door.

"I'm not happy with this."

"No sir. I do understand. But that's the way it is."

John Watson havered, leant in to see Sherlock comfortable and relaxed, almost asleep on the back seat. Was almost reassured

""He will be fine, Dr Watson, honestly. I know how to look after him. I've done it before."

"When he was still William?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell me."

"Not my place, sir. You must ask him yourself if you really want to know. He won't tell you, but you may want to try and find out anyway."

"And how do I do that?"

"I could tell you to observe him. Properly look at him. Very few people bother to properly look at him. Or try to read him."

The driver nodded, the epitome of brusque, terse military care.

As the electric window rose, John Watson thought he heard George Bradshaw say:

"Find who he really is, understand him and earn back his trust, John."

But before he could react to that the car silently swept away from the kerb, leaving the Watsons standing on the pavement feeling alone, belittled and a bit lost. Even though Sherlock was back. Even though Eastern Europe had not claimed him nor killed him.

TO BE CONTINUED…..

 **Author's Notes:**

There was a great deal of TAB dialogue to navigate round and through in this chapter, but so much of it shows attitudes and references to the past, and sets up events to come, so is included.

This story runs through a very tight narrow time frame between S3 and S4. **It has no relevance or relativity to S4.** Apart from one brief scene reference in the next chapter.

George Bradshaw makes his first appearance in the O'Donnell short story _The Browning Version._ And then in _Things We Lost In The Flames._ He appears in actuality as Lady Smallwood's chaffeur at the start of _His Last Vow,_ turning her car round to go to Baker Street.

Ex-Colour: Former Colour Sergeant. A Colour Sergeant in the British Army, or Marines, is an unusual and non commissioned rank between Sergeant and Warrant Officer. NATO codes the rank at OR-7. A CSgt wears the insignia of a monarch's crown over three downward pointed chevrons. Basically the senior NCO of any company, who protects the ensign, the post is usually only given to a senior serviceman who has distinguished himself on the field of battle.

Sophocles: Ancient Greek playwright and philosopher, author of The Theban Plays and Oedipus Rex and Electra, among others.

Thomas and Emilia Ricoletti: The characters whose unexplained death and murder are the McGuffin that drives the action of the Mind Palace adventure in _The Abominable Bride._

OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; A common mental health disorder in which a sufferer has obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. See charity website OCD-UK for more information or help.

Newgate Calendar: Also known as _The Malefactor's Bloody Register_ this was an 'improving' publication of the C18th and C19th Originally a list of executions and serious crimes, the title was adopted by a variety of blood and thunder publishers and became a racy record of period crime. From which also came the case of Henry Fishguard. Available to buy as books, or view online.

IPP: Imprisonment for Public Protection. A UK legal order of imprisonment of no set time period and for no set level of criminality. Individual case critical.


	2. Chapter 2

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 2

This chapter contains brief reference to the only scene from S4 Ep1 relevant to this story to explain how Sherlock was not only directed to solve a more immediately pressing problem than Moriarty, but why.

As this is the only scene in S4 relevant to S3 Ep3 _His Last Vow,_ by both plot and timeline, it will therefore be the only reference to S4 in this sequel. Any alleged revelations from S4, and which lie in canon future, are not part of this story arc, and have no bearing upon it.

To also point out the obvious to potential nitpickers: as this story takes place in the space between S3 and S4, baby Rosamund Mary has not yet been born and nor has Euros inflicted herself upon canon. Nor does her shadow fall across this story.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

 _And let them know that I am Machiavel;_

 _And weigh not men, and therefore not men's words_

 _Admir'd I am of those who hate me most_

 _(Christopher Marlowe; Jew of Malta)_

She hovered in the doorway, but finally gave into the temptation to enter the room, to sit gently down on the edge of the bed. Not wanting to spy on him, or disturb him at all, but after a moment's hesitation that instinct for care impelled her to lift a dark curl entangled into long eyelashes and wrangle it carefully back into the ridiculous mass of hair tumbled on the starched cotton pillowcase.

The face beneath was gaunt, pale, and tiny scab stipples still disfigured the right side, if you looked. The eyelids were blue veined, and the cheekbones stood too high, shadowed by cheeks too hollow. But he was at least peaceful now. Breathing slowly and steadily, and he was clean.

Although in deep sleep, her slight movement still registered with the man in the bed, who murmured slightly and turned his head unconsciously towards her. And she froze.

A naked arm shot from under the covers, found and grasped her wrist in an unbreakable hold even before the eyes opened

"What is it?" The voice was harsh, low, it's owner instantly awake and on full alert. Those grey-blue-green eyes a laser light turned her way.

"Nothing. Be calm. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"Then why are you here?"

"I wanted to see for myself that you were all right. And -" her lips quirked in an ironic smile she could not repress - " for goodness' sake - it IS my house!"

The shock of the sudden totality of his awakening was receding now, and she reasserted her authority.

"Oh. So that is where I am. I did wonder. Yes. Of course. My apologies." He smiled a little and released her. Tucked his arm back under the duvet, and, surprisingly, did not offer to sit up. Just tilted his head back into the pillow with a shudder they both ignored, and looked levelly at her.

"I wanted to check on you before I left for work. How are you?"

"Fine. I've things to do. Better get up and go."

"No. Go back to sleep. Get some rest. At the moment you have the luxury of being stepped out of time. And no-one knows where you are. Make the most of the hiatus."

"And why would you do that for me?"

"I told you. At Paddington Green, I told you. I did not agree with sending you off to Eastern Europe to be a sacrificial lamb. You deserve better."

"Subjective."

"Truth. Deal with it."

Her voice matched his for cool appraisal.

"Moriarty…." he began.

"Oh, really don't worry about him too much." She hitched a shoulder and looked away. Prim, contained, all but dismissive.

"Why? But I thought….." and then slowly, more deliberately, looking at her closely: "What have you done?"

"Nothing for you to trouble yourself with. The less you know the better. All I require you to do for now is to attend a formal debriefing at the Home Office this afternoon regarding the unfortunate death of Mr Magnussen.

George will deliver you to Whitehall and your brother shall present what will become the official governmental line and record of events."

"What do you require me to do?"

"Be your usual obnoxious self. That tends to put people off their game. This debriefing will formally close the file. More for your brother's benefit than your own. Bear that in mind."

"Smoke and mirrors?"

"And what else is life at this level of governance?"

"A large degree of cynicism mixed with pragmatism, it appears."

"Quite so."

"But Moriarty…..?"

"Leave that for the present. You have a more pressing problem to deal with that is no-one's concern but ours. The real reason you were brought back, as it happens. The one that got away. This Magnussen business needs tidying - finishing. And that is your job."

She looked at him, willing him to read her mind, to stop her having to put certain matters into words. And hoped he was not still befuddled with drugs and dreams.

"How did he get away?"

"Mainly, I suspect, because you were in no fit state to exercise your instinct and keep your brother informed and the Special Forces briefed. So he hid and just slipped through the net. Things like that happen in chaos, they just do. I regret it, naturally. But we do need to get him."

"He is dangerous. I assume he has gone to ground until the heat dies down?."

"Apparently so. But now you have given a name we can focus. Enrico Baldissi. So you know him?"

 _Too true. Too well. Fur rugs….pinpricks and pain…..restraints and retching and humiliation…..hands. More…._

"You could say that."

"Find him. We will provide background, research and restraint. Leads if we are lucky. You provide the instinct and hunt him down. And then you leave it to us."

"Legwork."

"Yes."

She watched him roll his head on the pillow in frustration, pull a face.

"This is not what I came back for…."

"Yes it is. It is. To end this. Cut off the last head of the Hydra. For we do not know how much of Magnussen's secret knowledge Baldissi knew, or took away with him. And that information is too sensitive. It cannot be offered elsewhere, to our enemies, for sale or exchange. "

She watched Sherlock Holmes shake his head in frustration, click his tongue irritably, but say nothing.

"Do not misunderstand me. I am not discounting Moriarty at all. He may be dead. He may be alive. The file remains open. As you know, the body was spirited off the roof at Bart's, the blood washed away with chemicals; so impossible to get DNA from it to identify the victim; the surveillance cameras were surprisingly unhelpful.

"Whether or not Moriarty - the real Moriarty - is still alive is open to conjecture. He has not appeared to challenge the way you dismantled his systems, but nor has the actor Richard Brook reappeared either. We cannot dismiss a theory that the man who ate his gun before you three years ago is actually dead. But then again, we cannot categorically say he is not. Or who he really was. Or is.

"Theories abound. The simplest is that Moriarty did indeed die that day. But if he did die - why spirit the body away? And who did that? And why was it so important to convince you - you of all people - that Moriarty was dead? And that you had to jump to your own death to save lives?"

"Indeed so. That theory puts a different complexion on everything."

"Other theories include having Brook groomed to play the role of Moriarty, and Moriarty either making himself look like Brook, or leaving Brook to be the face of Moriarty while the real Moriarty changed his own.

"Or they were just remarkably alike anyway, and that similarity created the plan. It is also said Moriarty has a brother. Could you imagine an identical twin?" she allowed herself a puckish grin.

"It's never twins," he dismissed that possibility immediately. scowling.

"But can we be sure? Perhaps one or other of them became the Man In The Iron Mask. But rather like calling out the Three Cups Trick…..which Moriarty was which? Or was Moriarty all three? Was it Moriarty who died? Or his double, Richard Brook? Unless Moriarty was also Richard Brook? Or was it his brother? Did anyone actually die at all? " she reflected. And she looked at him and smiled.

"We need more data," Sherlock Holmes asserted, frowned.

"Of course we do. And that is not yet forthcoming. It may well have been that Moriarty's hugely successful crime syndicate was becoming too well known, too targeted by law and lawless alike. And the man was using you as the excuse to allow him to disappear by assumed death, stepping away from himself and his network at a point of maximum awareness of the powers and the agencies targeting him.

"That sounds complicated and slippery enough for Moriarty."

"Exactly. So if he was dropping through his own identity into invisibility with maximum visibility by involving you and an apparent public double suicide, he would indeed have let all his teams carry the can for him.

"He could assume you would never die, but become an avenging angel; doing the job of dismantling his organisation for him. I can't prove it, any more than I can present a body. But if it was me….." she shrugged.

"So I was just wasting my time - playing out Moriarty's game foe him - for two years? And that the whole bloody thing now just starts up again?"

"Not at all. Do not ever believe that, Sherlock Holmes! What I have just said is merely one of several theories. But without the iron control of Moriarty, in his absence his gangs would have unravelled regardless, and fought each other for dominance; international gang warfare in fact. It would have become very messy. Who knows what even higher levels of death and destruction you prevented by removing people who most certainly needed removing regardless?

"And certainly, at the very least, from your perspective, Dr Watson, Martha Hudson and DI Lestrade would all be dead. Just for starters. Please remember that.

"So no, your mission was not wasted nor unnecessary. Never think that. In fact I am of the opinion that the full importance of your clear up operation has still to be properly appreciated. In the same way that your killing of Magnussen revealed his plans for the future, all the secrets he held, an intelligence that will now be of great help to Her Majesty's Government.

"Fortunate you killed him, as it happens. And we cannot, in the final analysis, discount another possibility - that Moriarty and Magnussen may have been working in concert."

"Because they both targeted me? And my brother?"

"Partly. Yes." She nodded, and looked levelly at him. "I have not shared that thought process with Mycroft. Not yet."

"He will be enchanted when you do," The consulting detective raised himself up on one elbow, gave a slow half smile at the thought. He was wearing a grey t shirt. "But about that Moriarty video: which I still haven't seen?"

"All it says is ' _Miss Me_?' George will show you a recording later."

"But how and why? Is he alive? And who transmitted it? For why? And why bring me back because of it?"

"I suggest you try not to worry about that." She smiled at him, and it was a smile that gave him neither comfort nor reassurance. " You have more pressing and more immediate matters to deal with."

"Baldissi? Baldissi Is more pressing than Moriarty? Surely you are joking?"

"I never joke. Do as you are told, William. Just for once, Let us simply agree that Moriarty may or may not still remain in play, but this other issue requires your attention first."

"But I was brought back to deal with Moriarty. Moriarty is my reprieve from death. Or a fate worse than death. I can't just ignore that. And neither can you."

She clicked her tongue and sighed with sharp exasperation.

"Listen to what I am not saying, child. I credit you with intelligence. Are you still half asleep?"

A hand came from under the covers, and he rubbed his face and yawned.

"And what are these other issues? In your assessment?"

"There remains the strong possibility that several of Magnussen's victims may still be targeted with this man on the loose. He may just run for cover, and try to disappear off the face of the earth, but at worst we have to consider that he could make his own power play for money, leverage, position.

" If this is so, your own safety and that of your brother may well be compromised.

"Then there are Magnussen's brothers. Anyone else who was involved in Magnussen's life, or events leading up to the removal of Magnussen from this world, all may well be this man's target.

"You told your brother someone escaped from Appledore. We apprehended the Ghanian, Simeon Kosi Nzema. We did not even know about the existence of the other man until you told us."

He sighed, and nodded as if exhausted. Which he probably was.

"So Enrico Baldissi has a good headstart. It will give him an advantage As a Magnussen henchman, he has a lot of brawn, a little brain, and a distaste for nothing. I know from experience he does not hesitate to use force. How did you miss him?"

"Your brother blames the general chaos after you shot our Danish friend. Either he got himself straight into a panic room or escaped to the roof. We did not even know there was access to the roof until the next day. Another feature not on the architect's drawings, another secret door."

"Very lax of the people your side of the river."

"Indeed. But we - you - will rectify that and hunt this man down. Priority. He will not escape."

"Heard that before," he said dismissively.

"Well, you are hearing it again. Sleep now. George will bring you breakfast and deliver you to the office later. Did you register the instructions I just gave you?"

"Yes, thank you, Lady Smallwood."

"Then I shall see you later, Mr Holmes."

o0o0o

Thee journey back to Baker Street from Vauxhall in Mycroft's limousine was mainly silent and the atmosphere arctic.

"That was a ludicrous display of bad manners and ingratitude," Mycroft commented finally as the car swept to a halt. And Sherlock tried not to grin. There were the machinations of Mycroft Holmes - and then there were the machinations of Lady Elizabeth Smallwood. Which were something else entirely.

But at the debriefing into the death of Charles Augustus Magnusson - and what was being purveyed as the official version of events, as opposed to the story that had been released to the press, and the genuine actuality - he had done what she had asked of him, and enjoyed the peevish discomfort and sheer embarrassment of his brother as he did so.

Mycroft deserved no less, he felt. And it was time the British Government realised that there was still a layer of authority above his own, and a personal weight he needed to accept and learn to carry as a result of his own actions regarding Magnussen.

"I am so sorry about that," the younger brother said, not feeling sorry at all. "But it is so long since I had any ginger nuts….."

"That is not what I mean, and you know it!"

"Nothing to discuss, Mycroft. Not that I am capable of discussing much at all. I am still high, apparently. Lady Smallwood has decreed it."

If his brother was listening and concentrating he would have picked up on that remark, understood it and interpreted it.

Sherlock turned the whoozy smile he knew his brother particularly loathed in his direction, and was satisfied to watch Mycroft tighten his lips and narrow his eyes.

"What are you - and she - up to?" Mycroft asked, the very question in itself an admittance of weakness and lack of information. "What did the pair of you plot when you stayed at her house last night? When you should have been in hospital? Or Baker Street? Or even - God forbid - with the Watsons?"

"I wasn't party to any decision, my head being elsewhere at the time. But I did not want to be taken care of by the Watsons: I am doing my best to withdraw myself from their orbit, as you well know."

Mycroft Holmes turned hard eyes to his brother.

"Is that wise? You are their safety net and support system. "

"I am aware. But arm's length still seems the best way to protect them."

"We discussed this in Denmark. The fact that assassins - even retired assassins - rarely have a long life. That someone tends to come along and desires revenge, or challenge, or closure. The final sort of closure. Or that the assassin cannot survive without the adrenalin rush. And then gets involved in circumstances beyond their lessened current level of ability, and so do not survive."

"Shut up."

"Why? You know this is true as much as I do. You know the statistics. You know that she probably does not have long."

"Shut up."

There was a silence inside the car. Two men looking rigidly out of their own side windows. A clenched sort of composure.

"There is no guarantee you can stop this," Mycroft Holmes continued.. "Or even that I can. We anticipate impending tragedy but hope for domestic bliss. Whatever sort of bliss domesticity and parenthood may be."

"Just shut up."

"I can't, Sherlock. You know you have to take that eventuality into consideration. Safeguard yourself against the future."

"Me? Safeguard me?" His voice rose a little; for Sherlock Holmes his voice rose a lot.

"Of course safeguard you! Mary Watson is of no importance whatsoever in the scheme of things. And she has put you in danger too often already. Which is a rather understated way of saying shooting you to death. In any other circumstance she would have been - ah - absented by now. Shall we say? But she is married to your best friend. That is a serious impediment to you."

"No it is not. I don't have friends. Or a best friend. You know that."

"And I have always tried to ensure that status quo for your benefit. But the bond between yourself and Watson is, or has been, beneficial to you and to your work. In the past, certainly. And it should be again.

"So I have taken the liberty of giving Dr Watson a challenge he needs to help him recover from his little brainstorm of falling in love. To learn you anew, and this time to understand you. Or else get out of your life."

"Huh!"

"Do not scoff, brother mine. He is taking the challenge seriously."

"Well he shouldn't. And I object to it."

"Not your call. He needs this challenge, more than you do. He needs to help you find Baldissi - for his wife's sake as well as his own. And when Fate catches up with her - as it inevitably will - he will need you there. For him. Because he will have no-one else to turn to but you."

"And you want me to have no-one else to turn to but him?"

"Not at all. Because however much you dislike the idea, you have me Having someone to work with focuses you, however. And no-on else but Watson presents that assurance. So much as it grieves me to say so, you are beneficial to each other.

Instead of the expected tirade of abuse and anger, Sherlock Holmes nodded his head.

"Yes. I see. I don't like it, but I understand your reasoning."

He paused, and thought, before he said the rest, still deciding whether or not he should. Then decided he might as well, as Mycroft was in the mood for truth. And sometimes he was so annoyed he was prepared to give it to him.

"George Bradshaw made a unilateral decision to take me away from the Watsons last night. You and John might like to think he kidnapped me or swept me off to plot doom and destruction with Lady Smallwood. But in fact George Bradshaw did what he has always done.

"He rescued me, Mycroft. Claimed me and swept me up to rescue me and guard me. Looked after me and let me sleep everything off - the drugs, the experience, the reprieve. He has done that before. IF you choose to recall."

Sherlock pressed his fingers to his eyes to ease the slight headache remaining from the drugs, the mental and physical effort of acting mad and bad for Lady Smallwood that afternoon.

He had vague memories of George Bradshaw lifting him out of the back of the car, safe from prying eyes deep in the Hampstead garage. Of carrying him into the house and up the stairs to a bedroom as if he was a small child.

He remembered trying to protest, trying to disentangle himself, to stand up and walk. But his legs were too weak; even his spine did not want to hold him erect. And Bradshaw was brusque, impersonal, military precise in his care. With Sherlock unable to do anything other than succumb to it.

Bradshaw dropped him slowly, and he had flopped backwards down onto the mattress, fell into a brief respite as Bradshaw left the room, only to return with a bowl of hot water, a flannel and towels.

A quick and efficient bed bath, all brisk military precision, was terse and impersonal, limbs moved and adjusted with cool hands,, just quietly breathed instructions to "shift - turn - lift - move - again - rollover - again' - gave him calm and respite, cleanliness and ease.

"Thank you," he offered quietly, but was sharply told to 'shut up - lie back - head on pillow - be still' - as the covers were drawn up over him. Another brief respite. Was sat up for water and pills and a mug of chicken soup he was able to hold between his hands for a warmth that stopped him shivering at last.

"Just withdrawal," he said, teeth still chattering.

"I know."

"Sorry to put you to trouble, George."

"My job. Nothing new. If I'd been in your position I might well have done the same."

"No you wouldn't."

"No I wouldn't."

They grinned at each other. Travelling down time together, seeing back through the years in between together. Since they had last done this thing.

"Don't say this takes you back…" Bradshaw warned as he saw something of memory twist in Sherlock Holmes' face.

"No. Wouldn't dare."

George Bradshaw looked at him levelly. Seeing the man. Remembering the boy. Recognising the same empty despair.

"You were worth rescuing then, William, and you are worth rescuing now. "

"Please don't…"

"Someone has to point it out. Your parents can't. Mycroft won't. I don't know what Robin and his family would say. Apart from thank you. Where ever they are, and whatever they're doing…."

"He's still a faceless, chinless wonder. A nonentity in some bureaucratic cul de sac or other of government."

"Oh, really?" Bradshaw nodded, absorbing information. "Living a life, then. That'll do. Even if he might forget to thank you every day for it."

"Stop it. That was then; a long time ago."

"Doesn't make it less real. You need to remember that yourself, sometimes."

"I never forget. That was what made me. Nothing else made me. As a result I made myself. "

"And you could have done a lot worse, you daft kid. Now go to sleep."

 _Get out of my head, George! Don't need reminding…._

He shook himself like a dog in reaction, ridding himself of that memory, of all the memories that coloured it. And realised his brother was now sitting in the back of the limousine and looking at him with an unreadable expression that said he knew exactly what he was thinking. _He knew!_

Mycroft Holmes had snapped his head round to look sharply at his brother. And to read him. Read what they never mentioned, never discussed. Never tried to consciously remember. Why was Sherlock referring to it now?

"We never talk about this," Mycroft said quickly, as if startled. "Why are you talking about this now?"

"I'm not. I am merely pointing out that if it comes down to trust, Bradshaw has any and every prior claim over anyone else. Everyone else," he repeated with sepulchral force. "That's all."

"The one time I was not there….."

"Was the one time you were needed. And still nothing for you to feel guilty about. It is dead and gone. You cannot change what happened. Put it down, now. Mycroft. For good."

"Stop it. Just…."

"I did not start this line of conversation, you did." Sherlock Holmes was careful to keep all the pain and any heat out of his voice. "I am merely pointing out that George asserted his prior claim to be there for me, and I allowed it Wanted it, even.

"And in that scenario I would trust George before John Watson or yourself. Even if I had been myself yesterday I would still have chosen to have gone with George Bradshaw. Voice of experience, brother. My experience."

They looked away from each other. The younger brother put his hand on the door handle to open it.

"And did he?" Three words Mycroft could not stop himself saying.

"Did he what?"

"Care for you?" Words torn out of him by a concern for his little brother he was always so loathe to express. Words that only sounded disdainful.

"To the best of my recollection he did. He cosseted me and put me to bed and made sure I was asleep, not unconscious. Nothing much. No villains to shoot, no wounds to dress, no morphine to administer. Not this time. All very straightforward. In fact."

He snarled the words, was out of the car and across the pavement before his brother could reply. Flung back over his shoulder:

"Get over it, Mycroft. Then we all can."

And then he had to wait for Mrs Hudson to answer his knock on the big black door. He had given the keys back to her yesterday - _was it really only yesterday? -_ had not expected to see his home ever again when he left it twenty four hours earlier.

But here he was, back on the doorstep. A flash of memory of the day he had moved in. John Watson at his side, Mrs Hudson's welcoming motherly hug on the doorstep. A disconcerting memory. Nostalgia was it? A desire to step back in time, when life was simpler and people did not stand in his way, demand what he could not give them and confuse his issues?

The door opened and there was Mrs Hudson; denim fisherman's smock over cropped slacks and blue crocs topped with a wrap around floral pinny; he almost laughed at such a practical unstylish combination, but was sucked into a massive, breath crunching hug before he could do so.

"Sherlock! It is wonderful to have you back! And so soon!" she exclaimed, capturing one hand and drawing him into the hall and closing the door firmly behind him. She made him pause once inside and in that quiet privacy, held him away from her and just stood and looked at him, a piercing assessment his eyes could not meet.

"So much for being sent to the naughty step," she said sarcastically. Then realised he was not as amused and delighted by the change in plans as she was.

"Are you all right?" she said; just as sharply, but in a different way.

"I am now," he replied, and for a moment his arms closed around her so convulsively she thought her ribs would break. He had been for a split second at the brink of falling to his knees and sobbing. And he recognised that fact with a hollow negation of a very human need he would never acknowledge in himself.

He turned her, turned himself, and spotted John Watson standing in the doorway to 221A, lounging silently against the doorjamb. Smiling gently and looking relaxed, but with a forbidding tension across the shoulders, unsure of his welcome.

"Hello, John. Had not expected to see you here." He managed to keep his voice soft and level, but felt spied on.

Watson should have said he was there as soon as he and Mrs Hudson crossed the threshold; he did not like to see others observing his affection for his landlady. It was too deep, too personal, to share and exhibit to the world.

"Hadn't expected to be here. But we were worried about you, Mary and me. Mycroft told us you were coming home. So I thought I'd better drop round and see if you were OK. As you wouldn't let us take you to hospital or care for you yesterday. If you recall?"

The last three words snapped out verging on angry and disappointed. Sherlock Holmes flapped a weary hand. Did not deign to answer. Stepped away from Mrs Hudson and saw his case waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

"One of those swish government limousines brought it this morning. That was how I knew you would be home. Had a quick tidy round….."

She took a light bulb from the smock's pouch and handed it to him.

"And how many months has the main light upstairs been out, and you've just not bothered with it?" she enquired.

He shrugged and smiled. Typical irrelevant motherly nagging; oddly reassuring.

"Change the bulb when you go up. John will make sure you do," she instructed. "And I've put some basics in the fridge….."

"Not my housekeeper," he murmured.

"Shut up, cheeky," she snapped good naturedly, tapping him on the arm in mock disapproval, then softly shoving John Watson out of her way as she retired to her own flat.

By the time Watson had disentangled himself from his former landlady Sherlock was half way up the stairs with his case, and as Watson followed him he saw the consulting detective enter the flat and close the door behind him. Watson sighed, climbed the stairs, opened the door again and followed him into the sitting room.

A room unusually tidy, many things put away anticipating their owner's six months absence. At least that long, if not forever. The suitcase stood by the door now, the coat and suit jacket slung across the sofa, and Sherlock Holmes was standing on the coffee table, replacing the light bulb in the centre ceiling rose.

He had clicked on the silver Ikea standard lamp to give light in the early evening dark to see what he was doing, and Watson simply stood silently and watched him, silver and slim against the light, at such a mundane and untypical task.

The tailored white shirt showed a frame skeletally thin; Watson could see ribs and shoulder blades through the thin cotton. But the unhealthy drug sweat and wobble of the previous day had gone, and Watson had a sudden memory of the Sherlock Holmes he had first known five years before.

Arrogant, alien, antagonistic. Had he reverted to type after all the recent trials and pressures?

After his own failures over the past few months when love and marriage had taken precedence over everything else, ruled out everything else, Watson now found himself looking at his friend-colleague-partner with new eyes.

What did he know of this man? What did he really know?

When he had been drawn into the orbit of this unique, unknowable young man he had been at his lowest ebb. Sherlock Holmes had scooped him up like a whirlwind gathering tumbleweed, set him back on his feet, pointed him in new directions. Gave him courage and heart and purpose.

But that had been then, and this was now.

Mycroft Holmes had warned him; reconnect with his brother or leave him alone. Belong properly in his life again, not potter around the edges. Abet, not just attend. Or make a clean break - or have that break made for him. And he did not doubt Mycroft Holmes' ability to do just that.

George Bradshaw - whoever he was - had advised him to observe and learn who Sherlock Holmes really was, and John Watson had been stung by those words. And somehow - surprisingly - jealous of the enduring connection he sensed between the younger man and the older one.

Surely he knew who Sherlock Holmes was - better than anyone? That was what he had thought. Yet Bradshaw's words nagged at him. Had stopped him sleeping. Made him think.

Made him realise how Sherlock Holmes had appeared before him like a magician, a shaman, and had changed his life in an instant. Gave him back the courage he had lost, new hope and purpose with one look of those strange opal eyes. He had been lost, then transfixed and charmed from the very first. Had blindly accepted the courage and the power of the man without question.

Sherlock had led, and John had followed. Blindly but boldly, in friendship and camaraderie. Because that man had saved him.

But when had he ever questioned who and what the man really was? The man he had followed, supported, protected?

Within twenty four hours of knowing him, he had killed a man to save Sherlock Holmes. The bond that had created had been beyond friendship and loyalty but was the pledge of linked souls, mutual purpose, courage and justice and high adventure.

But that high functioning extreme could not last. That was then and this was now: it had become some sort of mantra.

And now both Mycroft Holmes and George Bradshaw had made it quite clear. If he wanted to retain the friendship of Sherlock Holmes he was going to have to work for it this time. Make sure he earnt it and deserved it No longer taking Sherlock or his support for granted.

Because Sherlock had already sacrificed too much for John Watson and his wife. And now it was John Watson's turn to step up to the plate and prove love and loyalty and friendship. Or have it all taken away.

The stakes were high. And the risks might be higher. Love and honour and trust. And a friendship that was all about courage and care and mutual survival.

He wanted to be equal to that challenge. Needed to be. Because the truth had hit him in the face over the past few weeks; because although Mary Morstan was the love of his life, Sherlock Holmes was his soul and his spirit and his strength. And without Sherlock Holmes he was nothing.

So he had taken a deep breath and made his own vow.

Calm and committed now, he watched Sherlock Holmes perform the mundane changing of a light bulb, and it was as if his every sense was on high alert; as if he was looking with laser vision at a man he had never seen before, rather than one he thought he knew so well. Known better than anyone else, he had always thought.

But was that indeed the case? This man, who had lived and died and lived and died again, was back. And John Watson was back too. The fire in his blood that had been the primitive and overriding power of new love and passion, and which had turned his mind and his heart from a man he had once called his best friend, was in equilibrium now.

Love for Mary. Love for Sherlock. One no longer excluding the other. And he realised - finally - that both people were as vital to him as breathing.

And he needed to find again the trust and the accord that had been between himself and Sherlock Holmes for years and for their adventures. Only now did he understand what they had had, he and Sherlock. A rare teamwork and accord, deep friendship and challenge.

The words of an old pop song kept drumming in his head:

" _Don't it always seem to go,_

 _That you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone….."_

But how to get that back? Well, he had been told how: by both Mycroft Holmes forcefully and by George Bradshaw kindly. To look at Sherlock Holmes and see the heart and soul of the man, not just the brittle brilliance. To see and learn and understand. And become again, in new and deeper, more mature ways, the best friend he had always claimed himself to be.

It sounded so simple. But was not going to be an easy task, he knew, as he watched the younger man concentrating on what he was doing, excluding John Watson, not speaking to him incessantly as he would have normally done. Not even, he realised, probably wanting him there. But just for once not saying so.

For John Watson that simple moment was one of epiphany. Sherlock Holmes restraining himself in silence. Not throwing his former flatmate out of the building, not scouring him with the usual harsh and uncensored words.

Was this unusual restraint a Sherlock simply still in shock from his shooting of Magnussen and the aftermath? A Sherlock with senses cauterised and not caring? Or a Sherlock that was over sensitised, caring too much? After all the tribulations of the past few days suffered in solitude, was Sherlock being comforted by his presence, but in his own impassive way?

They had never been demonstrative with each other in the way Sherlock was with Mrs Hudson - even Molly, sometimes even Lestrade. They had never seemed to need that. A glance, a shrug, a half smile had always seemed to say enough, before. But now…

Was this accommodating silence Sherlock's version of aversion, of friendship, or a conciliatory hand extended?

Not knowing, judgement suspended, he watched those long pale hands as they worked, as the shirt cuffs fell back and the strange slanted light from the standard lamp made the scars on his wrists shine silver and hollow.

He had always known those scars were there, but had always accepted them before as just a part of Sherlock. Like the cauliflower ear of the boxer, the broken nose of the rugby player, the aluminium limb of the war veteran.

As a soldier and as a doctor he had seen such scars before, so they had never seemed unusual, or had troubled him. But now….? Why had he never asked Sherlock Holmes - even just as his doctor - about those scars?

Asked if those scars bothered him, limited his dexterity, pulled against his tendons? Hurt him in cold weather? Were chafed by some garments or his wristwatch? Embarrassed him if seen by other people? If they reminded him every day of how they had been made - whenever he lifted his hands to comb his hair, brush his teeth, button his shirt cuffs? And if that daily reminder made his soul bleed anew on a regular basis?

Sherlock had never explained those scars. Explaining himself had never been part of the younger man's psychology. So, knowing that, why had he never thought to ask?

Why had he never asked? Because he just accepted anything and everything as appropriate from such a crazy brave headcase as Sherlock Holmes? And how, in all conscience, had he done that? The realisation was a new humiliation.

Time to do as bidden. To stop just accepting Sherlock Holmes as he was, as he presented himself. To look deeper…to find who his friend really was - how and why he was - and in so doing gain new knowledge, a more mature and understanding trust between them now.

"You are very quiet and you are looking too closely at me. Have you really never seen anyone change a light bulb before?"

The usual sarcasm, but quieter and more subdued.

"I was just looking…and thinking…."

"Then stop. It is clearly painful," the consulting detective instructed waspishly as he stepped off the coffee table, heading for the light switch to check that the new bulb worked.

He made to simply walk past John Watson, but the doctor put out a hand and caught one of the narrow wrists he had been looking at so intently, half turning the consulting detective to him.

"I was thinking….how I have never asked you. And I should have. How you got those scars on your wrists."

He tuned the wrist he was holding; the scarring was worse on the more delicate undersides. Sherlock Holmes looked where John Watson was looking, and there was an intense, indescribable moment before the wrist was pulled gently - not torn angrily, as Watson had expected - out of the hand holding it.

"It was a long time ago. I don't remember," he replied levelly.

"I don't believe that. You are the man with the eidetic memory. Try another one," Watson advised. Persisted in a way he would never have before. "You were tied with your hands crossed in front of you, backs of hands together. Tied with your shoelaces. You can tell all that just by looking at the scars."

"I don't recall."

There was no movement. No motion or emotion. Just a blankness. So what did that mean? That was not normal, That was new.

"That means you won't, not that you can't."

"Drop it, John."

And another time, in another life, he would have done. But he had a mission now - to discover the heart and soul of William Sherlock Scott Holmes. No-one had said this was going to be easy.

"Was it on a case? Before I met you?"

"A case? No."

"An accident, then?"

"No."

"Bullying? Torture? A suicide attempt?"

"For goodness' sake…!"."

"Kidnap? Extortion? Some drug fuelled incident that went too far?"

"Of course not. Stop this. Why are you doing this?"

 _Oh! I see. You are taking Mycroft's instructions seriously, then. Seeing them as an ultimatum. Stepping up to the plate. But you do not have to do this. I'm never going to leave you. Never going to give up on you. I don't care what Mycroft says, and neither should you, you dimwit._

 _You know me better than that. You do. Mycroft will never shift me when I know I am right. And I have always been right about you, John Watson. Because you make me right._

 _But pleasepleaseplease do not press me on this because it is too much for me to share, even with you. Knowledge too far. Better you don't know. Better I don't tell. Better I don't remember._

 _Mycroft thinks I need to be looked after; that I have endured too much and need someone to carry my weight. And that you are the only candidate. He thinks I need you, and you need me more. Will need me more in the future._

 _But I gave my love to Mary. I told her she was safe now. Otherwise what was the point of shooting Magnussen? I am here for the both of you. I always will be. I don't know what he is worrying about. Worrying about you as much as he is worrying about me? Oh. Nonono._

 _But if he is right….and something happens…and you need me….well…of course you need me. I won't let you down. I don't know how to let you down. I would never do that. Mycroft does not need….._

He peered down into the doctor's face; that blank keening look Watson had only seen once before - on that very first day, when they had clashed during Lestrade's abortive drugs bust; when Watson had blindly defended Sherlock and Sherlock had stopped him with a brief word and a longer look. And here was the same blank and glittering look, with the same anguish behind it.

"Because when you came back, I was away - in my head, in my heart. But now I'm back as well. And I'll say it again. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you needed me. More sorry than I can ever tell you, Sherlock."

"Shut up. Stop saying that. Haven't you got a home and a wife to go to?"

The old hard tone kicked in, to remind Watson how little he needed this concern, this excess of care, all this _worrying. Needless worrying!_

"Don't try and deflect me, Sherlock. You do that to me - to everyone - too often and too well. But I see the trick for what it is now, and I'm not going to be deflected. It's time I knew who you really are. And what you need from me. What I should do for you."

 _Drop it, John! Just drop it! It's too little, too late. I don't need anything And I don't want to know. Don't want you to know…._

"I don't want anything from you."

 _Close him down! Close him down._

"I said 'need' not 'want.' What anyone thinks they want is rarely what they need. What you need…"

"Stop it."

"….is to have someone at your back. Because look at the mess you get yourself into when you are on your own."

"What mess?" the voice became a hiss, the eyes narrowed; and John Watson was suddenly reminded of a cobra; deadly. Waiting to strike. To strike him. "I kill people now. Be warned."

Anyone else would have been chilled to the bone.

"Nope. You don't fool me. You need me. You also need to learn how to become a complete human being. Grow your soul, Sherlock. Simple words, big commitment."

"Sentimental claptrap."

"Sez you."

"Stop it."

"What happened to your wrists?"

"Why keep asking? I'm not going to tell you. Is Mycroft trying to make you my shadow? My conscience? A puppy following at my heels?

"And how did you get that little scar on your left cheek? It's not an acne scar…."

"Stop this now. Do you want to see where my tonsils used to be while you're at it?"

"Listen to you. Snarling in self defence. "

"That's what I DO!"

The vehement explosion made Watson step back. For that second the response was frightening; and he sounded like Moriarty. Sherlock heard that within himself just as John Watson had, and how close he had come to violence. Because he dropped his head in something that might have been read as apology and stepped back. As John Watson stood his ground.

Put one hand behind himself to blindly grasp a chair back.

"Mycroft has put you up to this," he said, gaze unblinking. Nodded to himself. "Mycroft has told you …what?" Irritated. "That I have done…too much for you?. Should not be ready to save you any more?" Sherlock Holmes looked puzzled, then looked hard, silently, into John Watson's face. Read everything he needed there

"Oh. I see. He thinks it is your turn to save me. That I am too damaged, now to save myself? Thinks you should look deeper? Understand me? Or else…or else he will…remove you?"

"Why would you think that?" Watson asked lightly.

"That's a 'yes' then."

He turned away and snapped the main light switch on and off again. Watched as the bulb responded. Light and darkness. Chose darkness.

Sherlock Holmes withdrew to the bay window. John Watson followed him.

"Ignore him. I absolve you from any pledge Mycroft may have coerced you into making. Any responsibility for me."

"Sherlock, you are talking utter bollocks."

"No. I don't want you following me around again. I don't need it and you deserve better."

"I owe you."

"No you don't."

"Humour me."

"No. It's over. Magnussen is dead, Mary is alive, and so are you. No-one has a hold over her any more. You are both free. Make the most of that freedom. Look to your baby."

"You think it's that simple?"

"Yes. All that's left is for the police to find Magnussen's acolyte who escaped Appledore, then it's finished. No problem. Relax."

"Sure, I can. Can you?"

"I'm alive. Isn't that enough?"

"Is it, though? Where do you go now? What do you do?"

"Stop interrogating me. What's got into you today?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it's the realisation how close I came to losing you yesterday. You were going to your death yesterday, weren't you? But you weren't telling me. Not telling me things again now. Bad habit, Sherlock."

"Why? I was not your problem. Nor your punishment. You chose a new life without me. Live with that decision. Turn the page."

"I only chose the new life because you were no longer in the old one. Until you came back. So I thought I had to choose. But I don't, do I? I can have both. Especially as Mary turned out to be…almost a female version of you. "

"That's a compliment? "

"I don't know. It's just how it is. Like I said - humour me."

"No. Walk away, John. Mycroft is just trying to make you feel responsible for me….."

"He doesn't need to try. He knows we're a team, you and I. Together through fire and flood."

"No."

"Yes, Sherlock. Yes. I've faced it and accepted it. Now you need to."

"He's just trying to make you feel guilty. Make you protect me, stop me killing someone else. Because you're the soldier and the sensible one. While I am just the burdensome baby brother. Not fair. Not your job."

"I dunno. Someone has to do it, and I suspect I'm best qualified."

"No."

"What's so awful about that? It's what we've always done before…."

"You have different responsibilities now. Husband and father."

"You once said I looked after you as if you were my child…."

"Sentiment. Only allowed at weddings. Not legally binding."

"Give me a break, Sherlock. I'm here. Let me in."

"No."

"Why/ What do you want?"

"To be left alone. No puppy on my heels. No _understanding_." He bit the word out as if it was an insult. "All I ever wanted from you was….. " he hesitated, forced the words out. "…to be accepted, For what I am." He pulled a deep breath that wobbled; controlled it.

"When we first met you accepted me. You didn't snipe or belittle me, or call me a freak. You just accepted me You said wonderful and fantastic and brilliant. No-one had ever….done that. It. Was. Special."

The words trickled to a stop. There was a pause.

"But that's in the past. I don't want you poking and prodding at me, wanting to know who and why I am. That's no-one else's concern. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, but I'm not listening. As I was saying: how did you get those scars on your wrists?"

"Ask someone else, dammit!"

"And what if I do?"

"Shut up, John!"

"Who do I ask? Mycroft? Lestrade?" he thought for a moment. "George Bradshaw? Who is he? And how come after knowing you all these years I had never met him or heard of him before?"

"I hadn't seen him for years. I knew him….when I was a child."

"How do you know an ex Colour Sergeant? An ex Colour Sergeant, of all people! That means distinguished in the field, Sherlock! Why was he in your life?"

A deep sigh, a frustrated sound, hands tugging dark curls in frustration.

"He was my father's bodyguard for a bit. There! Will you stop nagging me now?"

"No. That begs even more questions! I thought your dad was a teacher?"

"Yes."

"Teachers don't need bodyguards."

"It was before….he became a teacher."

"So what did…..?"

Sherlock made a sound of frustration, swirled away and into the kitchen, and John Watson heard the words flung back at him:

"Enough! Go home! Leave me alone!"

John Watson sighed and shrugged, and realised he had pushed hard at a locked door that evening. But it had opened the tiniest way for him.

Enough for now. Hs military instinct understood when to withdraw.

As he crossed the room to leave, something in his peripheral vision caught his eye and snagged his brain, something different, something that had been hidden deep in shadow by the light of the standard lamp.

He stepped uncertainly towards the garish black and white patterned wall that bore the yellow smiley face and it's bullet pocked features. And stared.

"Sherlock….." he said hesitantly. Walked towards the wall, and looked, and read, and automatically lifted down a sheet of photocopied paper held in place with a drawing pin.

He looked at the paper. A copied photograph. Tasted bile in his mouth. Read words again to make sure they were relly there….realised he wasn't imagining anything.

"Sherlock! Here! Now!"

The urgency in his voice brought footsteps and a harsh voice.

"I told you to go…."

"No. No - look!"

John Watson pointed, and watched Sherlock Holmes step forward, peer with undisguised disbelief at the words written on the wall.

Watched his face settle into impassive lines. Watched him step forward and put out a hand to trace with the middle finger of his left hand the reality of what they had both seen and read.

"That wasn't there when I left yesterday. It was not there." He asserted flatly, turned to John Watson and held out his hand for the paper the doctor was holding.

"What is that?"

"It was….pinned to the wall….I can't…you shouldn't…. no, Sherlock."

"John! Show me!"

"It's you. Isn't it? You?" He stared at the photograph, and thought he was going to be sick. And the silence and blank expression from the tall pale statue standing next to him was it's own answer

Sherlock Holmes flicked the photograph a cursory glance and looked away.

"Who are the other men in this photograph, Sherlock?

John Watson watched his friend's lip curled in distaste, his head give a tiny shake of denial, but he did not reply.

"Sherlock? Talk to me."

But the younger man continued to stare at the wall as if transfixed.

 **2 easy**

 **2 kill**

 **U 1** **st**

He read it out, the three line scrawl in bright blue spray paint. The message did not seem any less terrifying when spoken aloud.

"This is my fault," said a low stricken voice that sounded nothing like Sherlock Holmes. "He plans to kill you all first. Before me. To make me suffer."

He turned to John Watson and shock and horror screamed without release from behind those hard grey eyes.

"His punishment for me. My punishment for killing Magnussen. My fault. All my fault." He put long thin hands to his face to hide whatever expression lay there. And all John Watson could see then were the eyes. Narrow and glittering and looking at him with something flaring, something…..

"I fear for you, John. For you all. "

He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. Looked at John Watson with an expression the older man could not begin to describe.

. I am so sorry. But I don't know what to do."

He swung away, took six long strides into his bedroom. Without another word shut the door behind him. John Watson heard the lock turn. Then silence.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's Notes:**

During an interview in Mycroft's room at the Diogenes Club during _The Abominable Bride,_ Sherlock states that Moriarty's body was never found on the roof of Bart's. I am holding to that statement as it is canon and presenting possible reasons and repercussions as a result of that.

' _You don't know what you've got 'till it's gone'_ the song that John Watson has as an earworm _,_ is _Big Yellow Taxi_ written by Joni Mitchell and first recorded by Counting Crows.

The naughty step may be a particularly British child discipline thing. With the move against corporal punishment for children, the convention of the naughty step is to punish a child by being placed in a situation of public exclusion. So rather than sending a child to it's room - where it can be invisible and do it's own thing - the naughty step is a place out of the mainstream and an accepted place of penance (a modern child version of a pillory perhaps) An isolated chair, perhaps, but most usually the bottom step of the stair - the naughty step. Started by upper class nannies many years ago, and has worked it's way down.

The Lernean Hydra is a many headed serpent from Greek and Roman mythology. It lived in a lake and was killed by Hercules as his Second Labour. The legend says that whenever a head was chopped off, two more would grow to replace it. The hydra had poisonous breath and blood so vile even it's scent was poisonous. The doubling in number of replacement heads indicates the apparent uselessness of struggle to overcome evil that only a hero can and will achieve success.

The Man In The Iron Mask: A real character, arrested in France in 1669 or 70, imprisoned until his death 34 years later. His identity is still not known, although theories abound. The most popular, as suggested by novelist Alexandre Dumas and repeated in many film and TV adaptations, is that he was the twin brother of King Louis XIV.

The Three Cups Trick: The simple looking but acid test of the skilled magician. It demands many skills, including misdirection, manual dexterity, sleight of hand and audience management.


	3. Chapter 3

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 3

 _Hello, darkness, my old friend._

 _I've come to talk with you again._

 _Because a vision softly creeping…_

 _(Paul Simon)_

Get away. Get away fast. Out of the room. Inside another room. And alone. Separate. Isolate. Don't look back. Don't listen. Don't be distracted. Just get away.

 _Get away to think. Got to solve this. Think._

Nearest door. Open it. Go through it. Shut it. Lock it. Turn away. Get away.

The first objective was to make sure the door was locked. Key turned on a place of safety and solitude, the key still in place so neither another key nor the over-ride nub could open it. And the next thing was get as far away from the door as possible. Which meant hunkering down in the space between the wardrobe and the chest of drawers on the far wall.

So that was where he sat. Back pressed to the wallpaper, knees high and feet tucked in tight, arms wound round ankles and right cheek on knees, facing the wall. Eyes crunched closed.

The door knob rattled and the door hinges squeaked a soft complaint as John Watson tested the firmness of the lock with his shoulder.

"Sherlock. Sherlock! Come out of there. Talk to me. For God's sake!"

 _Go away. How can I think if you don't go away?_

Watson rattled the door furiously. Thumped it, just the once. There was a long silence.

"Sherlock, stop sulking in there. This achieves nothing. Come out."

Another long silence.

"We're a team," said the voice through the door. Source of the voice lower down now, Sherlock Holmes registered. So John Watson was sitting on the floor against the wall in one room, just as he was doing in another room. Don't need that.

 _Shut up._

"This isn't just about you, it's not just your problem. It's yours, and mine and Mary's. Mycroft's, All of us. We'll solve this, just like we always do. Together."

 _You don't have a clue, John. Not a clue._

Silence.

John Watson rubbed his hands across his face in frustration. God damn the man, why did he always have to be alone? Shoulder the problems of the world alone? Treat help and support as if it was a refined form of torture? He took several long slow breaths and tried again.

"Here we are. As usual. You being the tortured genius. Me being the idiot trying to keep up. But Mycroft's right. Much as I hate to admit it. We can't go on like this, Sherlock.

 _Since when has this been 'we'? This is ME! My problem, my situation my responsibility. And there is nothing I can say - nothing at all - that will make you believe me. Or even understand. understand it. Understand me._

"We've known each other too long for you to keep charging off with me running to keep up saying 'brilliant' and 'amazing' and just accepting it all.

"To stay with you, to keep helping you, to share the load….I've got to understand all this now. Know who you are and where you are coming from. And why…" the words petered out, hesitated, stopped. "Why we have to get you past this stuff. Running off and doing everything alone and making it seem as if you are punishing yourself for being ….." the words drifted away again. "Brave. You."

 _No! No. Just. No._

"So talk to me, you bastard!"

 _As if! Get the message, John. Why isn't silence doing it?_

Watson thumped the door again. But there was still nothing but silence from the other side of it. A speaking silence, if anyone had been listening.

"You think it's any easier for me, being this side of the door, and saying all this? Easier than for you to do it? Talk and explain and share? 'Cos if you do you're more of a machine…." he bit the words off. Groaned with frustration as he got to his feet.

 _See? You see? This is what we always come back to. Alone protects me. But more importantly…. Me. Alone. Protects. You._

The silence this time was longer. Too long. And by the time Sherlock Holmes got to his feet, had unlocked the door and wrenched it open….he was only just in time to stride over to the front window to see Doctor John Watson walking away down Baker Street.

Without pausing he turned on his heel, put on the scarf and the Belstaff and also strode out into the night. But he did not follow John Watson.

o0o0o

The restaurateur was just going up the stairs to bed when that old familiar musical tattoo of knocks beat on his back door and slipped the cogs in Angelo Grimaldi's brain. He turned round quickly and ran to the back door.

"Get in here, you!" he exclaimed, flinging the door wide and grabbing an arm to pull a tall dark figure into the back kitchen of the Italian restaurant.

Sherlock Holmes stumbled over the threshold, and barked a laugh into the older man's face.

"You really should be more careful. It could be gangsters knocking on your door at midnight," he chided, more gently than he should. "Burglars, even."

"Fat chance!" the Italian restaurateur snapped back. "Attack the head of the Grimaldi clan! Who would dare?"

He laughed up into Sherlock Holmes' face; a tough bulky man in his early Fifties, light on his feet and with laughing eyes, smooth and streetwise and the best Italian chef in central London.

"Long time since you've arrived at the back door like this." he remarked, drawing the younger man deeper into the still warm fug of the empty restaurant. Flicking on the kettle to make tea, turning to fold his arms across his barrel chest and look assessingly at his visitor.

Thinner. Grey skin. Restless narrow eyes. Taut mouth. Stimming with the left hand again. Back to how he used to be when they had first met. The drugged up teenager surviving on the street Angelo remembered only too well.

"You look like you've had a nightmare. What's happened?"

"Living in a nightmare. You don't want to know."

"Do I not? I have know you too many years, my friend."

As he always did when Sherlock Holmes visited at night, Angelo Grimaldi reached for eggs, cream, butter, mushrooms and whatever else he had to hand - cooked bacon crumbs and cold peas - and began to assemble an omelette without being asked.

He hooked a chair from under the little kitchen table with his foot and pushed the consulting detective down onto it, making two mugs of tea and putting one down for Sherlock Holmes.

As he swirled butter into a pan and set the heat beneath it, he waited to hear words. None came.

" _Cosa hai bisogna, di ragazzo?"_ he asked softly _. "_ What do you need, boy?"

Sherlock Holmes looked up and met his eyes and shrugged, smiled a tired smile.

"A little information, _vecchio amico."_ Old friend.

"So ask."

"Do you know of anyone in the Italian community called Enrico Baldissi?"

"Baldissi." His eyes were on his hands, chopping, beating mixing. Mind elsewhere, now.

"No. But the name is Sicilian Italian. I can tell you that. He is in England?"

"Yes."

"I can ask around. How fast do you need to know?"

"Yesterday. "

The chef nodded. The eggs sputtered as they hit the hot pan.

"I will ask my brothers while you eat. I assume this man is not being assessed for sainthood?"

The ironic one sided little grin he received in reply was answer enough. A photocopied head and shoulder shot torn from a larger photograph was waved in front of his face. Grainy, an odd angle, but good enough for recognition.

"Do not know the face. But those dark and smooth Dean Martin features are very Sicilian. And you know what Sicily means?"

"I hoped not."

"You name a Sicilian villain to me that has Sherlock Holmes worried enough to be at my door in the middle of the night. And you do not think the man is _Mafiosi?_ Pah!" heslid the omelette onto a plate and put it onto the table as he put utensils in the younger man's hands. "Is he part of an operating Mafia family, Sherlock: a _coscia?"_

"I don't think so. He worked for a newspaperman. Lived in. No life space for being _mafiosi_. Not directly anyway. Surely?

"Eat. I ask. Wait."

He walked across the room to pick up his telephone, punched in numbers, began to speak in rapid fluent Italian. Made another call. And another.

Sherlock Holmes ate steadily and without his usual protestations. Sipped his tea, hunched over the table. Could not have told anyone afterwards what it was he ate or drank.

Finally he pushed his emptied plate away and rose to absentmindedly wash the utensils he had used when Angelo returned.

"My brothers have background information," he said, and watched Sherlock work at the sink. "The Baldissi's are from Fontane Bianche in Syracuse. Came to Bedford in the Fifties to labour in the brickworks. Moved down to London. Hooked up with the Messinas. Heard of the Messinas?"

"No."

"Before your time. Legendary Sicilian gangsters, father and five sons. Big in prostitution and the sex trade. Does that make sense to you?"

 _Fur rugs and photos, use and humiliation. Oh God._

"Yeah."

"OK. Don't look at me like that. The boys will ask around, try to find him within the Italian brotherhood. We'll get back to you with something. You hooked up with this man, Sherlock?"

"You could say that." Hand stilled in the washing up water, head suddenly down. "He wants to kill me."

"So? Tell me the worst."

And so he did. Explained about Charles Augustus Magnussen and his death. About the escape of Enrico Baldissin from Appledore. And how he was still at large, eight days on. About the message written in blue spray paint on the sitting room wall at 221B.

Angelo whistled through his teeth.

"He will be hard to find. Mafioso men do not visit pubs or clubs. He will be lying low until he strikes. That is the Mafia way. And there is a strong Mafia network in London that will hide him. Does he have foreign connections, aside from the Italian ones?"

"Because of Magnussen, Denmark is the obvious place,"

"Bad choice." Angelo Grimaldi shook his head, and looked stern. "There are a lot of Italians in Denmark. Denmark has long been called 'the Italy of the North' and Italy is the Danes favourite holiday destination; many Italian businesses moving up to Denmark these days - Copenhagen, Aalborg especially."

He watched Sherlock Holmes rub a hand over his face in a sort of despair, and slump over the now emptied sink, hands still flat as if drawing warmth and comfort from the water.

 _Aalborg. Too much in Aalborg. Too many connections. Magnussen's brothers. Christina and Piet and the Jaegercorps. Would Baldissi know of them all? Was this fate or fear or simply coincidence caused by several threads of history sharing the same space?_

"What do I do? I need to find him and stop him before he starts killing….. "

"You ask me, Sherlock?" Angelo Grimaldi sipped his tea and thought. For his young friend to be so defeated and lost, and then to ask him for advice, was unusual.

"It's context, Angelo. The things one Italian gangster might know about another. Things I need to know to find him, understand him."

" _Former_ gangster, if you don't mind. Just because I am the only man in my family to have gone straight - and that mainly because of you - it's no reason to consider me an expert on both sides of the fence, _Piccolo_."

"No?" he quirked a smile, and for just a moment the old Sherlock was back. "I am not your little one, or anyone else's."

"Don't get spikey with me. My brothers will ask around, see what news they can find. You may need to be patient."

"I don't have that luxury….but warn them to be careful. He has not started killing yet because he was waiting for me to reappear so I can see and appreciate his handiwork. He wants me to suffer, you see? So he will kill others before he gets to me. I just don't know how many others."

"The Mafia way is to begin with family. But I do not know if this would mean your family - because you were the killer - or Magnussen's family, because they turned their back on him."

He looked at Sherlock and considered.

"I would say your family first, ordinarily. But that means Mycroft. And to get to Mycroft is rather like trying to walk through a wall. So I would say, if he plans to strike hard and fast once he begins, the persons he will start with are Magnussen's family. What I would do. Strike fast. Make an impression. Frighten the others. Standard procedure."

They looked at each other. Two hard men assessing options with the objectivity of a killer, for a killer.

"Two brothers."

"Two targets. Together. Maximum impact."

Angelo Grimaldi went to the bar, thoughtfully pulled out a bottle of brandy, poured a generous measure and handed it to Sherlock Holmes.

"Drink it. Good for shock."

"I don't….."

Angelo merely caught hold of the foot of the glass, pushed the rim into Sherlock Holmes's teeth and lifted. Brandy dribbled between the lips and the detective swallowed despite himself. Coughed at the bite of raw alcohol on an unpractised palate.

"This may be a long shot, Sherlock. But from what you say we have a villain who worshipped a mad man. Acolyte to hero. Tomorrow - today - is the saint's day for Theopompous and Theonas. A good Sicilian Catholic boy would know that, see the parallels."

He took a pull of his own brandy; no etiquette demanding gentle sipping when in private at this time of night.

"Theopompous was a bishop who converted to God a pagan magician who became his friend. Baldissi may identify with them. He may be at mass for them, and see that as if for Magnussen and himself, later today. Lunchtime.

"You may want to take a look at the Italian church on the Clerkenwell Road. See if you spot him. That is where he would be tomorrow if he identifies with them. Him or his Mafia family, his _cosia._ Yes?"

"Can't do any harm, Angelo. While I wait for news from your brothers."

"We do whatever we can to help, Sherlock." He patted the other man on the shoulder. "We owe you, remember?"

" _Non permettero a nessuno di ucciderti,"_ he said softly. "I let no-one kill you."

Sherlock Holmes put his hand briefly over the hand. Stood and left the restaurant without another word.

o0o0o

He made for Belgravia this time. Another walk in the dark, another address. Another door that opened to his knock in the middle of the night.

An armchair by a crackling fire, and a mug of hot milk with nutmeg on top.

"Why have you come to me?"

"You are my brother. That is what brothers are for."

Mycroft Holmes, in the matching judge's armchair on the other side of the hearth, was being his usual shuttered and slightly supercilious self.

The younger brother had updated the older on what Angelo Grimaldi had told him. His brother reciprocated with security camera stills from Appledore. A silent acknowledgement that they both needed to know as much as they could about the man making the threats.

Half a dozen clear shots of Enrico Baldissi.

"That is the man?" Mycroft asked. Conformation and clarity. He watched his brother take hold of the photographs and riffle through them. Saw his hands shake. Wondered fleetingly yet again just what had been done to his sibling during those lost hours in Appledore and who by. But rejected the idea. Even if he asked, even if his brother remembered, Sherlock would never tell him. And anyway, Mycroft really did not want to know.

"Yes. That is Baldissi."

"What can you tell me about him?"

"Not a lot," Sherlock's voice was determinedly light and offhand. "We had a short but telling relationship. I would put him as Magnussen's number three after Carlsson. Quick, decisive, vicious. Devoted to dear Charles. Obsessed, probably. And probably bisexual, if he thought of himself in such terms. Angelo is finding out about him for me. More reliable than your SIS sources, it seems."

He did not bother to keep the edge from his voice this time, and Mycroft heard it. Had the grace to say nothing at all as Sherlock concentrated down, looked at the photographs again, dispassionately this time.

"From his positions in these photographs, I doubt Baldissi will have seen you at all. Just John and me. I think, looking at the time signatures of these pictures and the positions of the cameras, by the time you got out of the helicopter Baldissi was already heading up to the roof. So you may well be safe."

"Thank you for that and your consideration. But I am not safe if he is mafia. You know as well as I do that the Mafia target families." Mycroft's voice sounded as if he was talking through a mouthful of bullets.

"Then I am so sorry I am yours."

Before, in any other situation, the tone would have been deep, scathing, as angry and dismissive as normal. This time the words slowly slurred themselves out as if through bone deep exhaustion.

"Stop it. You want me to beg, brother mine? Admit this is my fault? Has been for the last twenty years?"

For now the positions were reversed. Sherlock bloodless, Mycroft unable to contain his feelings.

 _Not the iceman, now, am I Sherlock? Am I ever? Am I really ever?_

The atmosphere should have been electric, angry and angst laden. It usually was. But this time Sherlock refused to be the stone that struck sparks from his brother's iron will. The words bounced off his brain and fell to the ground unheeded.

"Hmn. Step up your personal security for the time being," he instructed quietly.." I want to have this sorted quickly."

"Do you know what you are going to do yet?"

Mycroft watched his little brother turn his eyes down into his mug of hot milk.

"I am trying to find him. Gathering intelligence as fast as I can so that I can make decisions, read his mind, try to outthink him. The logical and definitive answer is that I must kill him before he kills me. Or kills anyone else on his way to me." He looked up suddenly and straight into Mycroft's eyes, took him by surprise.

"But don't worry, brother. I will kill him if I have to."

The flat logic of the ultimate answer and solution had not been what Mycroft had been expecting, so his response now was sheer reaction, arch and sounding critical. The normal pose and poise reasserted. Probing and testing.

"Getting the taste for death, are you?"

No words, but the look he got in return was so overshot with bitterness and disappointment Mycroft almost felt his blood curdle.

"It was not me that let Baldissi escape. It was not me who did not share information. It was not me who failed to take Magnusson seriously enough. It was not me who charged in with the cavalry - totally unnecessarily, as it happened -and put me in an impossible position…."

"Impossible positions are always defeated by your arrogance of youth," Mycroft interrupted, unable to hear more. His version of saying "I know" and "I'm sorry" and "please don't." Simple honest words he could not force past his teeth, not even for someone else's sake. So he spoke as always, in the way his brother understood. Normally understood.

Sherlock Holmes did not visibly react apart from pulling a harsh breath. Did not even look at his brother. Put his half empty mug down on the occasional table at his elbow, stood and walked from the room without another word.

It took Mycroft a moment to realise he was really leaving, without argument and without his usual clever riposte to gain the last word.

"Sherlock! Wait!" He paused, still listening for the usual telling remark slung over the shoulder, but there was silence and the footsteps did not falter. "Wait! I'm….."

The front door closed and did not even slam.

o0o0o

He had no idea how long he walked, or quite how far.

London was his home and his refuge, and it's streets were his sanctuary. So he walked and thought, and walked to calm the rage in his mind. The anger that Baldissi had escaped, at the aftershocks of shame at committing murder, the humiliation of solitary confinement in a holding cell. The escape route of sweeties, and how even that had been denied to him. In the final analysis. Always denied comfort, and even the need for it.

Above all, anger at the enormity of the problem he now had to solve, and through no fault of his own, not this time. Tasked by Lady Smallwood to find and neutralise Enrico Baldissi. As if that would be easy. As if there were no injuries or inhibitions to hold him back.

There was no richness of knowledge and observation in trying to find and neutralise Baldissi in the same way there had been for Magnussen. Whereas Magnussen had been the leader, the star, the public face and the mastermind, Baldissi had been the man in the background, the force and the enforcer, the manipulator for the master.

Baldissi had been part of the lost hours in Appledore, and when he and John Watson had been taken to Appledore on Christmas Day, Baldissi had been there to greet them on arrival. Had the Italian known the frisson of shock and fear that clutched Sherlock Holmes' breathing as Baldissi handed him out of the helicopter and onto the ground?

And had Baldissi - the man behind the man who was always so visibly just behind Magnussen, Erik Carlson, the man with the silver ponytail - had he watched and heard everything that had taken place through the security cameras? Had watched his humiliation - another humiliation - at the hands of Magnussen?

He did not know. And nor did he really want to. All he knew, and all he really needed to know, was that despite the adult and vicious Mafia connection at the height of his criminal mind, Baldissi's true delight lay in the simple human humiliation that characterised the born bully. And Sherlock Holmes knew all about that. The lost hours at Appledore had showed him that.

So put that experience and that fear into a box in the Mind Palace and lock it away. Deal with something else. Not Mycroft subsumed with guilt. Not what Angelo Grimaldi's brothers might yet find. Not John Watson trying too hard through a closed door…ah, yes.

For now there was also the secondary problem, the distracting problem that was his alone - to deflect John Watson from his task of digging and prodding and revealing…all the final and forbidden things Sherlock Holmes could not bear to have revealed.

For a moment he wondered what game his brother was playing by setting John Watson the task of getting to know him anew and understand him better this time. Why Mycroft seemed so intent on seeing him bleed and accusing him of acquiring a taste for death.

He was used to his brother pushing him into always being harder, stronger, cleverer, braver. But this was something else. Mycroft trying to deal with his own shame, perhaps? Recognising how slow he had been to recognise the threat Magnussen presented, how little he had helped? Pushing Sherlock into pain to assuage his own?.

Was this little project to goad Watson to do Mycroft's work for him? Lay bare a little brother the elder could read but not translate? To assuage the guilt and sense of over responsibility he always brought to bear in caring and protecting? To ease his own heart while taxing his little brother's?

Sherlock always tried not to think that, or to feel it, but sometimes it was hard not to.

When Mycroft tried so hard to control and to direct, to both test yet over protect, Sherlock responded and reacted badly. He could do no other. For he knew why Mycroft behaved in such a condescending, controlling, claustrophobic way. Enduring that was made no easier by the knowledge.

And now he had to face the humiliation of John Watson trying to find that knowledge for himself. And John Watson was nothing if not quietly dogged and determined. And Sherlock did not know how long he would be able to resist such open hearted persistence. Caring was not an advantage…..

He sighed and walked on, hands rammed deep into pockets, shoulders hunched against the winter wind.

He walked, he thought, forever. Trying to quieten his brain, to exhaust the frustrated hyperactivity that was driving him forward, despite his weakness, to calm his body and his mind. But it wasn't working.

He left Mycroft's without knowing where he was going, too angry to think, but eventually he found himself heading east, turning off the main drag of Oxford Street into the tiny courts and allies of Soho, crossing Long Acre and Kingsway, through Lincoln's Inn and flanking the rear of the Royal Courts of Justice, down Ludgate Hill and Fleet Street, turning right towards the river before the magnificence of St Paul's.

His route had taken him through the cuts and canyons of a silent and almost deserted London, unnoticed by the few revellers staggering home, by most of the homeless hunkered down in doorways, by the black cabs that hurried by.

Cut down little Goldiman Street onto Upper Thames and walked along the river, dark and running fast in winter flow. Down King's Reach towards Blackfriars, and along the Embankment, Waterloo Bridge in sight.

He was trying to tire himself out, to slow down his thoughts, which were churning like the river, running ahead of themselves. Despite his general weakness arising from being locked in a box for a week combined with a huge drug hit, the brain was driving the body on.

There was no point in being angry. Baldissi had escaped; what had happened had happened. He could tell Mycroft was angry - angry with himself, angry with his minions, angry with Baldissi, even though he really had no idea who or what Baldissi was.

This was his problem to solve, the final task in putting Charles Augustus Magnussen out of the world and beyond it. And solve it he would. It was the thought of who might be taken down with him as he closed the case that was worrying him, distracting him and driving him on.

He was walking fast, head down, hands still curled into fists. Until the instinct for danger was suddenly prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. He stopped and looked up and to one side.

In the centre of Waterloo Bridge to his left, across the wide empty pavement, a dance of death was being executed. A slight young girl fought two men who were trying to throw her over the parapet of the bridge and into the water, and remove her backpack from her shoulders.

He could hear her cries, the men's grunts and curses, the scrabble of shoes on concrete as she resisted and fought. And as he looked around, there was only him to intercede. No evening stragglers, no police cars when you wanted them, not even a passing cab or night bus.

He sighed - _where do I find the energy for this? Why is it always me? -_ took a deep breath, set his shoulders and ran forward. Shouting. Arms flailing to push the men aside, to grab the victim and to haul her back from the edge of the parapet. A girl with a fine blonde ponytail. Long legs, narrow shoulders. Not quite as young as she had looked at first sight. But full of wiry determination as she resisted the attack.

After the shock of attack came the shock of rescue. The girl's first thought, in panic, was surprise that anyone had come to her rescue at all, then the heightened thought in panic and fear that an angel with black wings had dropped from the sky to save her from death.

Sherlock saw her frightened eyes widen in surprise at the sight of him, her assumption that here was her saviour and that everything would be all right now. He could have shouted with new anger at that.

"Let her go! Back off!"

The two assailants paused, half turned. Then he struck. One assailant was smacked hard on the jaw and reeled back. Let go of the haversack he had been trying to prise off the girl's back, and she catapulted forward and would have been over the side and in the water if Sherlock Holmes, in the role of avenging angel, had not thrust out a hand and grabbed her by her anorak hood and arrested the fall with a jolt that jarred her very bones.

And that was when he proved himself to be human to her. His hands bit painfully into her arms as he hauled her back from the edge of the abyss. He groaned with the effort and swore fiercely as he did so. The girl was wrenched back from her frightening view of dark swirling water beneath her to look up into an androgynous angel's face. Opal shining eyes slanted down at her with a look of shuttered concentration and demonic will power and she knew she would never forget those eyes.

He dragged her backwards, as the other attacker shoved her forward. Shouted something, and with his free hand boxed the ears of the man balancing her on the edge of the world.

The next strike was vicious. He dragged her backwards to safety and to slither onto the pavement rather like a landed fish, and she shook down there on the damp tarmac as he ruthlessly and rapidly grabbed both men and tipped them over the very edge they had tried to push her across, ignoring their cries as they fell, all whirring arms and legs, and thudded into the water below.

"Are they….dead?" she stammered. Shocked by the speed and vicious action she had just witnessed.

"Who knows? Who cares?" drawled the rescuer she saw as her angel of deliverance as he brought her to her feet. "Are you OK?"

"Fine," she said automatically, although she wasn't sure. "Are you?" He ignored the question, lifting her by the elbows, propelling her towards the city, away from the concert halls and theatres of the South Bank. "Come on, move. We need to get you away from here before the police arrive and start asking stupid questions."

He did not add that in the past ten days he had had enough of policemen to last a lifetime.

"Stupid?" she echoed, bemused.

"Yes, stupid. The police are." He could not have sounded more bored.

She felt her legs moving along the pavement, but no sensation of them carrying her weight. He was carrying her weight, she realised, one arm around her waist and the other supporting her elbow, as she stumbled along quickly at his side, at his pace.

"Bit exposed on the bridge," he explained. "And we don't want police arriving and asking what those men were trying to steal; what you have in that backpack."

She stopped walking then, shocked, and looked up into his face .He did not return her look, or stop when she stopped, but simply lifted her smoothly off her feet again and kept walking, very fast. But he still did not meet her eyes and he did not stop.

They crossed Victoria Embankment below and only at the traffic lights at the corner of the Strand did he pause.

"OK to stand now?" he asked. She nodded, but as soon as he let her go her knees buckled.

"Just reaction," he told her smoothly, grasping her arm again, lifting her. "Where are you heading?"

She flapped an arm up the slight hill before them, which he interpreted.

"The Waldorf?" he asked, unimpressed, and she nodded.

"You need something to steady you first. Shock," he commented, and steered her rapidly across and left along the Strand and through dark narrow alleys, by the side of a church and down some stairs.

 _Distraction. Any distraction would do this night. This will distract for a few minutes, and a few minutes can stretch out to an hour._

"Where….?" she began.

"Crypt," he said unhelpfully, and opened a blue door.

Inside, a long narrow space of stone arches full of plastic tables with oilskin cloths, people sitting on chairs, a coffee machine gurgling in one corner, a quiet hum of conversation, a refuge of light and warmth.

He steered her towards a table for two and down into a chair.

"Sit," he said, and went to the counter, spoke to the middle aged woman behind it, and waited while two white mugs of steaming hot drink were obtained. She forced her breathing and her pulse to quieten, looked properly at her rescuer for the first time.

His height, distinctive looks and upright posture would have been eyecatching in their own right, especially so wearing that stylish coat with it's distinctive high collar and red buttonhole. But the face was itself arresting; tousled dark hair contrasted with ascetic features, an expressive feminine mouth, and astonishing eyes the colour of a winter sea storm. Once seen, never forgotten, she thought. Sensual features at odds with an impregnable exterior. A very dark angel indeed.

Who - and what - was he? And how and why had he come to her rescue?

He returned with the mugs. Two policemen in high visibility jackets at one table nodded a casual greeting, two scruffy girls who might have been homeless, sharing a drink between them, spoke to him as if he was a friend. He bent to talk briefly, took something from a pocket and gave it to them, and they nodded and looked away. A tall gaunt man sitting on his own called him 'Shezza' and the man smiled and patted a shoulder.

"Hot chocolate," he said brusquely. "Good for shock."

He sat down opposite her, but she could see she only had half of his concentration; peripheral vision scanning the room.

"Thank you," she said, cupping her hands round the mug. "Where are we?"

"Church Crypt. All night coffee bar. The place to meet London's most interesting people."

He smiled briefly and finally turned his attention to her and looked. A long, deliberate, expressionless assessment.

After a moment she squirmed and heard herself say: "Please don't."

"Do what?"

"Look at me like that." She looked up into those deep opal eyes. Who are you?"

"No-one of interest," he responded.

"Azrael, That's who you are," she said. "Azrael."

"I am no angel. Dark, black or otherwise."

She had not expected him to understand her comment. But he did, she saw. _Who was he?_

"No?" she argued. " Azrael has no aura, he carries his light within him. He has black hair that glistens with his inner light. A black cloak and black wings and brings comfort to all who need him. Sorry, but…is that not you?"

"I only wish it was," he said briefly, disillusion burring his sophisticated dark brown voice. "But ' _do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels_.'" he quoted at her.

She smiled at that, and then frowned, for who quoted the Bible these days?

"You are that stranger," she maintained. "You came out of nowhere. You rescued me, committed violence to save me. You might have killed two men for me; a stranger. Who are you?"

She asked again. Again he dismissed the question with a fleeting glance, and looked away.

"No-one you would know," he replied. "It really doesn't matter. But I know who you are."

Without moving a muscle, something in his eyes and face changed and hardened. And that set, emotionless expression which had chilled her blood earlier was back.

He was about to say more when a hand dropped onto his shoulder and he froze.

"Sherlock! How good to see you!" The man standing by her angel's side was, appropriately enough, a priest. A young, slight man with a scholar's face wearing an old fashioned tweed jacket and a dog collar along with a warm smile.

"Good morning young lady!" the priest greeted her. "Any friend of Sherlock's is a friend of mine," he said before turning to the angel. "Haven't seen you in ages. Chess? Thursday? Usual time?"

"Sorry, Theo. I'm working."

"Not to worry. Whenever you get a chance. See you soon," he grinned, and was gone.

"Mr Sherlock…" the girl hissed, now more confused than ever. "Who are you? How does everyone here know you?"

" Natural magnetism," he smiled at her. "Like you. When you play."

"How do you know that?" she asked.

"I deduced it. I deduced you." She stared into his eyes and he held her gaze.

"You are young and foreign. You present yourself as any ordinary student. But you are no student. Your jeans are from a trendy boutique neat Rome's Spanish Steps, your trainers cost £200 from Rutmans in Manhatten, and the anorak is limited edition Seasalt.

"But the haversack gives you away. Anyone who knows backpacks will know yours is bespoke for a particular purpose; longer, deeper, wider than normal, and that the ordinary pockets on the sides surround an armoured mid section that holds something special. And holds it secretly. Your violin case.

"So you own - and therefore play - a fine and rare and expensive violin. The professional violinist's violin is a Guarneri, and therefore the violin that is now between you and that cheap plastic chair you are sitting on is a Guarneri worth several million pounds. Perhaps even a Pietro Guarneri. Yes?"

He did not wait for her to nod or even react, but continued:

"So why would you have that rare and beautiful and seriously expensive instrument? Because you yourself are also rare and beautiful? But of course." He paused.

She was starting to feel light headed and panicky again. _How did he know?_

"You speak English perfectly, but there is a slight accent. Russian certainly; from Minsk, perhaps? Why were you on Waterloo Bridge heading towards the city? Because you were coming back from - where? Not the National Theatre or the Movie Museum. A concert hall then. In concert at The Royal Festival Hall tonight was a young Russian virtuoso being heralded for great things. So. You were heading from the Royal Festival Hall.

"You stayed afterwards for a post performance party, radio and press interviews, to chat with new friends and contacts. A meal, perhaps. It is very late. And you left, inconspicuously alone, long after everyone else had gone, to walk back to your hotel; not very far, so perhaps an understandable lapse in personal security. That could have been catastrophic for you.

"So you are Alyssa Almedova. Good morning, Alyssa. I am Sherlock Holmes."

He held out a hand across the table, smiling vaguely. The deduction was simple, barely the distraction he craved. But the rescue, and the break in routine and in thought, was momentary respite from the problem of Enrico Baldessi. He did not really care about her, and her problem, either way.

She smiled back and grasped his long cool fingers in her own. Transfixed by his courage and his cleverness, perturbed that even now, after all that had happened in the past twenty minutes, he was still distracted by something, not fully taking notice of her.

"Hello, Mr Holmes. Pleased to meet you. I don't know how you know all that. I am amazed. And rescued. So thank you. However can I thank you?"

"Drink your chocolate," he said sternly. "Then I will deliver you to the safety of your hotel."

He hunched his shoulders and put his own mug to his lips. Did not think about the hot drink he had failed to finish earlier. Or why.

"What are you doing walking alone in the city at this time of night?" she asked, intrigued.

"Just walking. It helps me think." He clicked out the last syllable firmly as if ending the conversation.

There was no answer to that, so she made none, They drank in silence, and when finished, he stood abruptly and said, brooking no argument:

"I will walk you back to your hotel. Make sure you are safe."

She thanked him but did not argue. He gave a brisk wave of farewell to the room as they left, and they stepped into the darkness. A wind had risen and the world was cold.

Aware of him pausing to check dark corners and the road behind them, she shivered and remembered anew what had happened. She settled the haversack on her shoulders and instinctively took hold of the woollen sleeve nearest to her. She felt him pull away from her touch almost as if he had forgotten she was there.

"Sorry!" she said.

"No. It's OK," he replied. So they walked quietly along together, past the shops and offices of the Strand and onto the Aldwych. At some point she found the courage to put her arm in his, and felt oddly reassured that he let her.

Her black angel stopped outside the impressive black and yellow frontage to the Edwardian marble hotel that is the Waldorf Astoria.

"I leave you here," he said formally. "Be more careful next time. That could have been merely a random attack. Try to have people with you if you are out so late again. You could get hurt. Your violin is as rare as it is valuable."

"How do you know about violins?"

A quirky smile and his eyes shone with genuine feeling for the first time. She was made breathless at the way it transformed his stern features.

"I play the violin."

He said it in such an amused, offhand voice all she could do was smile back and sway towards him, suddenly made boneless by his proximity, reluctant to allow his calm unemotional reassurance to leave her.

"That explains everything," she laughed softly. "I hoper that means you have your own Guarneri?"

"Could be."

"Seriously?" She laughed at the very idea, then sobered. "How do I thank you for all you have done for me? "

"Oh, come," he purred, still not quite engaged, still with most of his mind elsewhere. "What is a hot chocolate between friends?"

"I don't mean that - but thank you for it," she replied, suddenly serious. "How do I say thank you for saving my life?"

He started to turn away, uninterested in her little speech. But her hand on his arm stopped him. He stood stock still, not turning back but turning his head, his eyes somewhere above and miles away from her. Then he looked down, back into her eyes as if returning from a long way away.

 _Leave me alone, little girl. Do not disturb. Do not be attracted. You are wasting your time and mine._

"I told you. It was nothing."

"Not to me," she said.

She took a step closer to him, What could she do to impress upon him what his actions meant to her? Acting on instinct, she rose up onto her toes to try to match his height, lifting her face to kiss him. He saw her intent and she felt as much as heard him say 'no.' His eyes and his body recoiled.

But as she gasped a reaction he paused, looked beyond her, whispered a brief: "Oh!" and then very gently put his arms out and drew her to him.

Something had changed within him, she knew it. She drew in a tremulous breath, overpowered now by his closeness.

"I'm so sorry," he said, and now he was smiling at her properly. A charming smile that melted her bones. "Everyone who knows me will tell you I have no social graces."

He gathered her softly into his coat then, whispered his lips across hers and smiled deeply into her eyes. His magnetism left her breathless. Especially when he slowly and deliberately kissed the edge of her jaw, leaving her beaming up at him like an idiot, She knew she was doing it, but she couldn't stop.

"Invite me up to your room," he commanded silkily, beguiling her, stepping back slightly and raising his voice. There was no mistaking his intent from the now seductive drive of that mesmeric baritone. A voice he knew how to use to good effect. She wondered fleetingly if he had a beautiful singing voice as well?.

"Wha - what?" she pulled back against his hold, surprised, suddenly realising what he had said. But he easily tugged her back, still smiling warmly into her eyes, drawing her close up to him again, wrapping his arms around her back so she could feel his lean strength against the full length of her body

. "You're a fast worker!"

"Because you are beautiful!" he laughed down into her eyes and she thought her heart would melt. But this was her guardian angel. This couldn't be real! Could it?

"And I am irresistible," he stated, laughing and running butterfly kisses along her cheek.

As his lips reached her ear lobe and she shuddered, he whispered into her ear, in a very different and very businesslike voice:

"We are being watched. Make a show of inviting me to your room. Make it obvious you want me with you. So I can protect you from the people determined to take that violin from you."

She gasped and looked into his eyes. Hard and cold again. Dark angel. Dark, she realised, in many ways.

"Come," she said simply, obeying, instinctively now, tugging his arm with one hand and dancing her fingertips across his cheek with the other. "I need you with me tonight. Don't argue. Just come."

Fear and reaction were at war with something else, and she dared not analyse either.

She smiled at him, clung tight to his arm and did not let it go as they crossed the pavement and passed through the revolving doors. She did not look directly at the two men she could see across the road on the edge of her vision.

Two men looking at her. Two men she did not know and instinct cried out at her not to look again. A shiver went down her spine. She did not take her eyes off Sherlock Holmes. Or let go of his arm.

 _Angels of light deliver us,_ she thought. _And this one plays the violin._

That whimsical thought kept a smile on her lips as they crossed the foyer stepped into the lift. He stood away from her then, not speaking until they reached her suite.

He stepped forward to close the curtains and turned to face her.

"Where is your chaperone? Parents? Manager?" The harsh clipped voice was one she had never heard before. Work mode, she recognised.

"I don't have anything as old fashioned as a chaperone!" she exclaimed, stung. "My parents are home in Minsk. My manager…"

"Call him. He needs to know what happened to you. Needs to get you security. How long are you here in London?"

"I leave tomorrow…." she was disorientated by his speed. "Will I be safe?"

"I don't know. I don't know your schedule or your situation…"

"I have been on a European tour. Came from Germany to here for two days, then back to my base in Scandinavia for three weeks of workshops and master classes."

"Why target your violin especially?"

"I don't know. It's not even mine. It is on long term loan from the company that owns it. I have only had it for six months. Still learning it."

She slipped the backpack from her shoulders, zipped open the central section and took from it a modern violin case of white hard shell polycarbonate. She opened the number coded lock and opened the lid. Took out the elegant violin within and held it out to him.

"It is a Pietro Guarneri," he said. "I was right." He turned it in his hands with casual ease. And she watched him, intrigued, as long skeletal hands caressed the scroll and the peg box, glided down the fingerboard, the bouts and the waist.

Seeing his assurance, she took her bow from the inside of the lid and handed it to him.

"Haven't played for a while…." he murmured, and almost absentmindedly raised the violin and tucked the chinrest into his neck. Adjusted the tuning and the screw of the bow to tighten the hair.

"Horse's hair, the old fashioned thing," he murmured absently, as if approving, and she nodded. Watched him peer through the F holes of the violin.

"The sound post has been repaired, but many years ago," he observed. Thought a moment. "So this is the Holderness Guarneri. Owned by the Wardrobe family for generations. Bought by - hmn - Magnus Industries about fifteen years ago."

"You are very knowledgeable."

"Yes," he agreed without arrogance. Played the first few dancing bars of Mendelssohn's best known Violin Concerto without flourish or embarrassment. And she smiled to register that.

"You are a musician," she breathed.

"After a fashion," he replied. Unmoved, not even recognising her words as a compliment.

"Just who are you?" she asked again. Let her hands linger on his as he passed the violin back to her. He frowned, did nor reciprocate the contact.

"No-one at all," he said. "Look, would you ring your manager, get him to send hotel security to put this violin into the hotel safe and make sure your personal security is increased? If this violin is being targeted….and by someone who would happily tip you into the Thames and kill you…then you need guarding until this thing is sorted."

"Can't you…..?" she began.

"No," he said firmly. "I am busy. Working. And just at the moment…." he swallowed. "I am very tired."

She put a hand back on his arm and he snatched it away, but now when she looked she could see he was thinner than he should be, skin dull, dark shadows under his eyes and stubble on his face. And decided not to argue, however much she felt she needed his presence and assurance.

"I will ring Marco," she said, "Don't worry."

"Marco?"

"My manager, Marco de Bono."

"Italian?" The question was sharp, over alert.

"No. Maltese. He, too, was a violinist…."

She took her mobile from her pocket. Speed dialled. Spoke.

Sherlock Holmes took up the violin she had abandoned to take hold of her phone instead back into it's case, having memorised it.

"He'll be here," Alyssa said. "He's only along the corridor…."

And it was Sherlock Holmes who opened the door of the suite to a sharp rap.

Before him, a dark haired, thickset young man with a harassed frown.

"Alyssa….?" he asked, worried, not reassured, by the presence of a strange man.

"She's here, she's fine…." and he told Marco de Bono what had happened on Waterloo Bridge, and how he became involved.

The other man listened, distracted, and as he did he went over to his client, and grasped her by the elbows.

"You OK, you silly girl?"

Mid thirties. Not a native English speaker. A worrier. Failed musician. Jogger, slightly asthmatic. Smoker, though. Unmarried. More fond of Alyssa than she is of him. In love? Possibly. Right handed.

He was speaking to her sharply, but she nodded and reassured. And he finally turned to Sherlock, who was standing by the door and ready to leave. Marco de Bono read the body language and frowned.

"I will have the violin put away. And have Alyssa moved to a different room under another name. Put hotel security on alert." He nodded, brisk and decisive.

"Yes. Has Alyssa been threatened or approached by strangers at all?"

"Only you." The manager's tone was mistrustful. "Who are you?"

"Just a passer by," he said casually.

"He came to my rescue. And he plays the violin," Alyssa said helpfully, trying to create a link between them all. He caught the look De Bono gave her.

"I must go, Make sure she is safe. Will you call the police?"

"And what more could we tell them? Not enough for an investigation, I am sure. I imagine Alyssa's robbers were just chancers - she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"We leave London soon. We have a schedule we cannot abandon….."

"You need not necessarily be delayed, when you explain your situation,,,, "Sherlock began. "Where are you going to?"

"Denmark. Just a short hop."

A cold chill of premonition went down his back. He dismissed it as fanciful. He was too much on the alert, he told himself sternly, too busy looking for danger…because he knew it was there, round the next corner perhaps, lying in wait for him.

"Oh, Copenhagen?" he said with a smile, quenching memories of battle, the shock of dark canals at night, of tracking devices, of attack and defence and attack again. "A beautiful city."

"No," de Bono denied. "Not Copenhagen this time. But Aalborg, further north. You know it?"

"No," Sherlock lied. Fighting to keep the shock and the lurch of fear from both his face and his voice.

Christina. Pedder and Johan. The Utzon Centre. Serial murder. A silent and secret method of execution. Playing a violin. Another violin. Not this violin. Whose violin?

 _Coincidence? The universe is rarely so lazy….but Aalborg again._

No. No, no, no. No!

o0o0o

 **Author's notes:**

The back story of the friendship between Sherlock Holmes and Angelo Grimaldi is told in the O'Donnell short story, _At Angelo's_.

Although the main image of Italians working in the UK lie in catering, hospitality and ice cream, a large number came over, mainly to the Peterborough and Bedford areas, in the 1950's, to labour in the brick making industry. Many still remain.

The Messina's were a real Italian/Maltese mafia family operating in London after WW2. Father Guiseppe and his five sons not only ran 30 brothels in central London, they ran a sex trafficking ring throughout Europe.. They are considered responsible for giving Soho it's current reputation for sex and sleaze.

Mafia: The famous collection of crime gangs and families as begun in Sicily and spread around the world. More properly known as Cosa Nostra ('Our Thing') with a strong and inflexible code. Dealing with a wide range of crime, from murders down; and especially honour killings, both for revenge, punishment and as a test for young hopeful Mafiosi members. To kill is an initiation test, but also then as a source of blackmail to keep the new murderer controlled and compliant..

Theopompous and Theonas: Two real life saints forever linked by their unusual friendship, and whose saint day is January 3rd: which is the date it really would be in the storyline following Magnussen's death on Christmas Day.

SIS: UK Special Intelligence Services. Basically MI5 and MI6.

The Italian Roman Catholic Church, St Peter's, on London's Clerkenwell Road really exists. It was the first Basilica style church in England, built in 1863 and is considered the premier Italian church in England.

The Alyssa element in this chapter was first created for the short story _Black Angel,_ and always threatened to lead into a longer story. This is that story.

Archangel Azreal is one of the most powerful and highest ranked angels in the Host. His name means 'whom God helps' but he is often described as The Angel of Death. He appears in many faiths, and is the angel of grief who helps people with transitions and change.

Sherlock's nightlife due to his need for very little sleep is addressed in the O'Donnell short story _All Through The Night_. All night coffee bars, refuges, shops and crisis centres feature in many London churches, do a great deal of good and bring help and friendship to thousands.

Sherlock's angel quotation comes from Hebrews 13:2. There are various translations, but the basic meaning remains the same.

Guarneri violin: In ACD canon Sherlock Holmes has a Stradivarius he buys cheaply from a dealer who does not know the true value of the violin he sells. Which always seems a bit trite and obvious even from an author who was often slapdash in detail due to concentrating on plot.

However, he also envisaged Sherlock as a collector of violins. So the Strad may well be safe in Baker Street. He just prefers to play the Guarneri. Another violinist's violin.

Holderness is the part of East Yorkshire that lies between Hull and the sea. The unusual surname is local to the area and is part of a legend of it's history. That when the new town, canal and port of Goole was being constructed in the 1820's, many of the navvies employed on the construction were ex-criminals, men on the run and Irishmen - all seeking a new life. So when they were employed formally and had to give a name, many preferred the use of aliases as a new name, a new start..

So the new names appeared out of thin air, often inspired by items the men saw around them. So the area is rich in such names as Wall, Hook, Nail, Plaster, Wardrobe, Brush etc


	4. Chapter 4

The Magnussen Legacy

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This chapter contains a scene of sexually motivated attack and domination. The rating for the story remains the same because upgrading a rating for one scene merely makes people notice and read rather than deters them from doing so….if anyone actually looks at ratings or takes any notice of them at all for anything other than to increase the likelihood of reading for cheap titillation, that is.

If you find the idea of the content of this scene offensive, then don't read it. This is simple advice as well as fair warning and reasoning.

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Chapter 4:

''Here be dragons' was used when Man first mapped the world to mark unknown dangerous territories. Today, those who dare to venture, do so wearing Belstaff'

(Belstaff advertising copy 2016)

Thirty lengths freestyle, thirty lengths breast stroke. At 3am he had the basement pool at the Adventurer's Club to himself. The main lights off, just the water, the darkness and the inside of his own head.

At that time of the morning there were few people about, and to Sherlock Holmes that was the best time of all. So he swam up and down the mosaic lined pool with mechanical precision. And slowly his brain quietened as his body hit the wall of physical exhaustion.

Until finally he stopped mid-length, waded to the side, crossed his arms over the edge of the pool and let his body float to the surface while resting his forehead on his wrists.

"A mutual friend tells me you need information. And I owe you. Time for payback, I think."

The voice that came out of the darkness was soft and level and distinctly female. Without looking up or registering any surprise, he said:

"Good morning, Maggie. Who told you I was here?"

"Just like your brother and out mutual friend, I have my sources."

Dressed all in black, she stepped out of the shadows. A tall elegant woman of retirement age who was far from retired but never more active, something connected with Whitehall that was never admitted, head of the high class escort agency Magenta Rose; and mother of Ellie Driscoll Sondersun, whose teenage dalliance had started the blackmail cycle by Charles Augustus Magnussen that had ended in his death. At the hands of Sherlock Holmes.

He did not move but turned his head slowly towards her. Instead of standing tall in her severe black Balenciaga suit and looking down at him, she hunkered delicately low at his side. Vetements black stretch jersey high ankle boots with yellow heels, Cervin opaque black tights next to his face. Sleek black hair in a double bun, make-up immaculate even so early in the morning. Or was it late at night? He was not sure, except that it had already been a long day.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked. Feeling at a disadvantage.

"Simply being here, of course. Not dead. For once. Not tipping towards death in exile. And I should think not," she said. "Which makes your presence here a pleasure to see. And it seemed sensible to come here to you, where I will not be noticed nor my presence commented upon.

"I think I have some information for you that may come in useful. About someone you are seeking."

She lifted an eyebrow and looked at him.

Frowned to see the strain and the exhaustion in him now she was close to his side. She had been expecting him to be light hearted at being freed, at avoiding the MI6 mission. Challenged and enervated by the hunt for Magnussen's accomplice. But on reflection she now realised that would have been far too simple an end result.

With water dripping off him, hair slicked severely back from his elegant forehead, he looked older, sterner, darkly dangerous. There were lines and shadows around the hooded eyes, and his mouth was white and pinched.

She had been lingering in the shadows, watching him for some minutes, unsure how to approach. Unguarded and unobserved, as he thought, the anger and the blind energy of concentration in him as he swam had both startled her and made her take a pace backwards.

His naked body held both tension and a core exhaustion he could not have concealed even if he had wanted to, and as their eyes met she realised with a shock that he recognised the dubious objective assessment in her eyes but did not bother to try and hide either the strain he was under or their mutual recognition of that.

Their eyes locked, and hers were shocked as she realised this: two visible forms of nakedness about him she had never expected to see for herself.

"There is nothing of me you have never seen before," he said, reading her mind with chilling detachment, and without so much as a twist of humour on his lips.

"Indeed, but a treat is still a treat. You don't need me to tell you how attractive you are, and what a pleasant sight for old eyes that is," she said, trying to relax him a little, a smile in her voice. To show she was not offended by either his mental or physical nudity or the all too visible physical scars he carried "Or that the history you wear on your skin only deepens that attraction."

Her relaxed empathy and praise were unwelcome, however. Batted away.

"I don't want to hear any such thing," he answered. "I do not consider myself attractive nor do I need soft words. To say such things to me and think they are a compliment demeans you."

"Or says more about you," she retorted thoughtfully.

"Perhaps. But who cares? Tell me what you are doing here. I am tired and short of time."

She removed her smile and spoke with her usual crisp economy.

"Our mutual friend circulated a photograph to section heads from the security stills at Appledore. I thought I recognised someone I have not seen for ten years."

"Enrico Baldissi," he said,

She quirked an ironic knowing grin at him.

"Harry Baldwin. "

"Tell me."

He levered himself out of the water, surging to his feet from pool to floor in front of her, water streaming down his body in a silver sheen. His nakedness so close to her was neither challenge nor defiance, she realised. More a sign of determination, a declaration of himself as a bare fact. A life force stripped down to it's barest elements.

But it was, she also recognised with something of a lurch, a sign of him being at the end of one particular tether. Elizabeth had not prepared her for that.

"Not here. And certainly not like this. Get dressed. I will be on the terrace. Ten minutes."

She stood erect, turned and walk away. And he walked away without demur in the opposite direction.

Twelve minutes later she was at a corner table with a pot of coffee and hot buttered muffins and he joined her there. Back in the suit and white fitted shirt he had worn the day before. Hair still wet and slicked back, needing a shave. Instead of looking scruffy, he merely looked different: rugged and more dangerous.

"So?" he asked, sitting down opposite her and flicking open the green file she tossed to him.

Took out a standard portrait photograph and looked at it.

"Ten years or so younger. But yes - that is Baldissi."

"No. Harry Baldwin." she sat back, pushed a plate of muffins towards him and poured black coffee as she spoke.

"Ten years ago I was on a recruitment drive for Magenta Rose. Harry Baldwin applied. He seemed the ideal candidate. Well educated, handsome and charming. Self confident, well educated. Adult in attitude. He was fourth generation English Italian. His family came from Sicily, master tailors. But as the bespoke industry shrunk, the family lost their trade and his grandfather became a supermarket manager. Changed the family name to an anglicised version. Took the name Baldwin from a TV soap opera apparently. From someone called Baldwin who ran a clothing company. Oh, the irony."

"Don't ask me. I have never watched soap operas."

"Neither have I. We both have holes in out knowledge of pop culture."

"I should be worried?"

She laughed, and he smiled slightly. A tight little smile that made her grow serious again. She would have taken the old, frail Sherlock to her heart, the boy recuperating and relaxing, shyly dancing and chatting, at the Danish wedding where she had first met him. But not this dark and deathly thing that seemed to have momentarily lost all momentum and was running on empty.

"Something in him set off tiny alarm bells," she continued, not pausing to reflect. "So I instigated a deeper than normal screening. Little things started to reveal. Not necessarily much in themselves, but consistent. Thrown out of the scouts, we know not why. Cheeky behaviour bordering on inappropriate with little girls on his school records; and bullying of boys. Accusations of sexual assault at secondary school never followed through.

"A police investigation into stalking a girl never proven. A warning for beating up a boy who said he refused his sexual advances. Too strong an interest in sex and domination, I thought. And that little voice of instinct…a young man who used his looks and charm as a tool, and who resented having three older brothers when he felt he should be the leader of that particular pack.

"I thought there was the strong possibility of deep planning, cleverness and commitment, but little emotional control and cognisance. The possibility of psychopathic tendencies.

"He was reinterviewed, and more deeply, more personally, Instead of being embarrassed by this he was amused. And it was also clear he saw himself as someone special, some sort of James Bond fantasy figure; more of a construct than a real person. On impulse I told him there and then he would not be offered a job with me.

"Seems pretty clear cut. So why do you remember him so vividly?"

"Instead of being upset, or angry at being turned down for a career he clearly craved, or begging me for another chance, he simply stood up, said I was a frustrated old woman and had forgotten the power of sex, and how I would regret my decision. He leaned over the desk, took my chin in his hand and very slowly licked my face. "

"The same treatment Magnussen gave Lady Smallwood at the start of this thing."

"Indeed?" she sighed. "So who taught whom that particular behaviour? I cannot tell you for certain this is one and the same man, although I am sure it is; you need to fill in the last ten years for a clear and current overview."

"I am attempting to do so. I have a contact - a figure in London's Italian underworld. He has put the word out for me. I need data, and quickly. Until now, Baldissi has been invisible. A ghost." He thoughtfully drank coffee, ignored the muffins. "This man is not simply a fugitive being sought any longer. But an active aggressor."

He took his mobile phone from his pocket, clicked the screen, and showed her the photograph he had taken of the spray painted threat written on his sitting room wall.

"I found this when I got home last night. Have still not been home for twenty four hours, yet am pitched straight into this….."

She now knew empathy would not be welcomed in the face of this admission of fact, so instead looked at the words in the photograph for a long time, avoiding his eyes and what she might see there. And suddenly understood his mood of heavy determination.

"Have you shown this to Lady Smallwood? To your brother?"

"Not yet. I had hoped it was simply hollow posturing. But we can both see I need to act. And quickly."

"What can I do? How will this affect my daughter and son in law?"

"I don't know. Ultimately, he is after me. But it is not that simple. He wants me and anyone connected to Magnussen's death to suffer. I recommend Ellie and Ari take a brief holiday. And as far away from mafia territory as possible. If such a place exists.

"I need information to understand and get close to this man, find and corner him and stop him. Information that will not be readily available to security forces, coming from such an enclosed clique of society.

"The task is mine because I am his ultimate target. I killed his boss, his hero. My fault. My problem. Mea culpa. I may yet need to operate off piste." He raised a hand then to stop her responding. " If anything else surfaces or comes to mind, tell me. However unimportant it might seem."

"You have back up?"

"I don't know." He shook his head at an admission that bothered her more than it did him "That is the least of my worries." There was a long silence; in Sherlock Holmes terms. "I prefer not to involve my brother. His premature interference with Magnussen caused this situation. So I prefer him out of this as much as possible. Not undermining or taking over."

"And how do you think he will take that?"

A shoulder rose in negation, a tiny shake of the head.

"We have…. a particular estrangement that divides us as much as it unites us. I am used to it. So I expect nothing. He…..well, no matter. Lady Smallwood knows. But as for back up?" He shook his head and his eyes were dark and downcast. "There are old allies I prefer not to put under duress. John Watson, if pressed. Perhaps. Not…sure."

His head came up defiantly and finally he looked her in the eye again. His eyes green and grey, a deep and stormy sea. "Alone is what I am. Alone protects me."

His words and his body language chilled her to the bone. She had always known the relationship between the brothers was complex. But not like this. Not when survival depended upon it.

"What are you planning next?" she asked as levelly as she could manage.

"I need to find Baldissi. Baldwin. Or whatever his name is. Get close to him, close enough to strike. So I am going to church. For inspiration."

She watched him smile. And was delighted she was not the cause.

o0o0o

The knock on the back door of the elegant ground floor flat was far too early for the postman, and Mary Watson groaned when she recognised the tall silhouette against the opaque glass, but pulled herself together to be bright and welcoming.

"Come in, Sherlock. Breakfast?"

He stepped through the doorway and filled the room with cold air and heated presence.

"No time. Is John here?"

"Just getting dressed. Along in a minute."

He clicked his tongue, swirled around the room, causing a draught. Frowning, hands wind milling. Still wearing yesterday's shirt and designer stubble. Had not slept. Something was wrong. Mary Watson almost felt her instincts switch automatically to danger mode.

"Tell me," she said. And again, louder. Because she knew he was thinking, thinking so fast he had not heard her "Tell. Me."

He scowled at her, distracted, and she pushed a mug of coffee into his hand.

"While you are waiting for John….. tell me."

"Did John tell you about the message waiting for me at Baker Street last night?" He answered the question with a question.

"What message? And why tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

John Watson joined the party, shrugging into a grey sweater.

"The message Sherlock says he got last night?"

"Didn't want to bother you," he demurred. Smiling apologetically at his heavily pregnant wife; looking sideways at Sherlock, trying to read his mood between the scowling and the swirling. Trying to understand why he had been so strange the night before. And clearly was still.

"Have you slept?" he asked, trying for inquiry. Not inquisition.

The dismissive wave of a hand "No time."

He turned to Mary Watson.

"Mary. I need you to trust me. Do you trust me?"

She tilted her head at him, looked quizzical, sceptical, did not reply.

"Please trust me." His attention turned to her fully, his hands raising as if in supplication, his eyes burning into hers. "Trust me this time, Mary. I am trying to do my best. Why does no-one understand I try to do my best…..?"

"Sherlock….."

"Mary, listen. One of Magnussen's men escaped from Appledore. No-one realised until I was released and identified him. The authorities thought he was just an escaped fugitive. But last night he made a specific threat. Against me and mine because I killed Magnusson. How ironic is that?"

She lodged a hand under her swollen belly and grinned at him. A smile twisted and ironic to match his, understanding.

You mean how it makes no difference in the end? Because even if I had killed him before you got your chance to do it for me, this man would still be after us? Because we are connected? A team?"

"Quite so." He spun round with a hard laugh. " Your wife is brilliant, John. Have I told you that enough?"

He whirled back to her.

"Need you to do what I ask of you, Mary. Without question."

"What?" she was suspicious. Knew she wasn't going to like what he was going to ask. From the manic glint in his eye, the determination roaring out of his every pore. And from the dawning look of understanding on her husband's face.

"It's really very simple. I need you to pack a bag and get into the taxi that will arrive here in ten minutes time. Go where you are taken."

"No."

. Wait there for a week."

"No."

You will be pampered and looked after and cosseted. And protected. Just what you need."

"No."

"This is to keep you safe. Hide you away so we don't have to worry about you. Just for a week, Mary. I need to solve this quickly. And I - we - John and I - need to be sure you are safe."

"You can't do this to me, Sherlock. Not now."

"Yes, It must be now. Don't you see? Do as I ask, Mary. Please?" He turned to John Watson. "Tell her, John."

"Tell her what? That you feel you can drop in out of a clear blue sky and try to take over our lives? Again?"

"Trying to save you….."

"No. No from us both, Sherlock, Not gonna work, mate, Not when she is so close to having the baby."

"Because she is so close to having the baby."

Sherlock Holmes turned down the angst driving him. Stepped towards Mary Watson and gave the sort of tiny, genuine smile that could break the heart of his friends.

He put out a hand. Looked into her eyes for an unspeakable permission she did not understand, and then placed the hand gently and so lightly on her stomach.

"This is not about you, Mary. Not this time. This is to protect the beautiful little girl in there. To give her the best chance in the world. The very best chance."

She could not see Sherlock Holmes for the tears that suddenly filled her eyes.

"I hate you," she stated flatly.

"I know." The voice was barely a whisper. "I would hate me too. I'm sorry. But we are what we are. And I suppose this was always coming, Mary Morstan."

She clutched his hand and lifted it away from her belly. Held it for one moment, and to her husband it looked as if she had caught and imprisoned a blow coming towards her in mid flow. And perhaps in a way she had.

For a second he felt excluded from the wordless communication between his wife and his best friend. And was stunned when she turned Sherlock Holmes' hand to kiss the palm of it. A magical moment Sherlock destroyed by wrenching his hand away.

"Good. Thank you. Davy will be here to collect you in eight minutes. Perhaps you should go and pack?"

"Where am I going?"

"Secret."

"Is John coming with me?"

"No. Easier to steal you away alone. Keep you hidden alone. Easier for us all if he is here."

"Do I have any say in this?" John Watson offered. Milder than might have been expected. But he knew that he was outnumbered.

They both looked at him and smiled. His wife and his best friend. Their matching smiles and their matching psyches of professionals, of killers, of intelligent alien beings he was devoted to, suddenly chilled him to the bone.

"No," they said together. And gently.

And then she was gone. And the two men faced each other across the kitchen table.

"Back to running my life, then?"

The question came out sounding more sarcastic than intended.

"No, Just trying to protect….."

"Have you slept?" John Watson asked again. Watched his friend spin a tight circle, rake both hands through his hair. Shake his head.

"You know the old saying about when I'll sleep. So this first. Got to get this done quickly, John. Before other people suffer. Data is coming in. I will get him."

"I don't doubt that. But what are we to do now? And me? What am I to do?"

"Not resent me for stealing away your wife to keep her safe. If you can do that?"

"Why not hide me too?"

"Your absence would be noted. Baldissi would feel that you had both been hidden away because you were the most important people to me. Instead of just Mary going away for a probably perfectly natural pre-natal rest. To avoid him coming after the two of you first. I couldn't live with that,"

"Let me help you."

Sherlock Holmes looked down into the face of John Watson with a genuinely puzzled frown.

"Why? I don't understand why you would want to. This is my fault. I killed Magnussen. I made this happen. My responsibility to put it right."

"Yes. But Mary was right, too, wasn't she? That is just a detail: because if she had killed him as she had planned, this Baldissi guy would still be coming after us, wouldn't he?"

You might say that."

"Sherlock, Tell me. Tell me why you are so disturbed by this man?"

He watched the younger man duck away from him, avert his eyes, shake his head. But now he uncharacteristically ploughed on. "That photo stuck to the wall last night. That was to remind you, wasn't it? That he was one of the men that raped you? An accomplice of Magnussen?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does. It does!" John Watson found his fist buried in a lapel of the Belstaff. "How can it possibly be that you try to think nothing of being raped? That you think you deserve it somehow? That rape is so much a part of your expectation you just ride with it. How can that be? How?"

"Shut up, John."

"No, Sherlock. Not this time. Mycroft was right. Why don't I understand this about you already? I need to see and to understand these gaping holes in you so we can fix them. Or you will never will fix them, and the holes will just get bigger. And I can't allow that. You are too good for that."

"Sentiment."

"Yes. because in the right context there is nothing wrong with sentiment. And it is nothing to be ashamed of. You need to know that."

"Why do I need to know that? It doesn't help me."

"Perhaps not. But it helps other people to help you."

"If it shuts you up…because we really don't have time for this….." he huffed a breath and turned awkwardly to tip his untouched coffee down the sink, his lapel still being held, speaking staccato words as he did so. "Baldessi was one of the four men who raped me. Took it in turns. And other things you are far too young and innocent to know about. Satisfied? If not…." the voice turned into an almost vicious hiss, "…just ask Mycroft. He has the photographs that were taken to blackmail me with. I am sure that as you are now such good chums he will be delighted to show you. They are rather entertaining."

"Stop this, Sherlock. Stop trying to appal me and alienate me. It won't work. Are you listening?"

He realised he was still scrunching the coat lapel in his hand and very deliberately released the twisted fabric.

"Listening to what?" Mary Watson reappeared. Carrying a suitcase, wearing the red coat. Looking calm and businesslike and committed.

"Me telling Sherlock I hope he is hiding you in a five star hotel," John Watson lied easily.

"A top class health spa no less," Sherlock explained smoothly. "So you and baby Watson can relax and be pampered as you deserve."

He gave them both a beautiful smile, but it was debatable whether either of them believed him, or were just humouring him and each other. Either way, she kissed them both, made them promise to be good while she was away, and stepped into the black cab.

John Watson kissed his wife farewell, and made her promise to call him as soon as she arrived and was settled in. Then he stepped back and took a good look at the impassive cabbie.

He realised he had seen this stocky, ginger haired driver many times before. But how clearly had he ever seen this man before? Or noticed him? Wondered about him?

For this man also looked ex military, just like himself. That although he did not speak, he appeared to know Sherlock well, just by the way he looked at him,, and the way Sherlock looked back.

Why had he never noticed that before, the easy assurance this driver shared with Sherlock Holmes? Was he really looking at everything in his world with new eyes now? Surely this was not his imagination at work?

And Sherlock called him Davy. He made a mental note of the badge number….just in case.

And then he concentrated on what he was really supposed to be doing, kissed her and waved goodbye to his wife. Who was heading to an unknown destination and to safety.

So Sherlock Holmes and John Watson waved the taxi away with smiles. Until it disappeared around the corner.

Which was when John Watson turned on Sherlock Holmes and snapped out a simple: "Well?"

The consulting detective flicked up his collar in a typical gesture.

"No time to chat at the moment, John. Meet you at Angelo's this evening? I should have more to tell you then. Got to go now, and see a sinner about a saint. Or was it two saints?"

John Watson was speechless as his friend strode off down the road without a word of farewell. And reflected that he never knew when and if his friend was joking. Whether he was joking now.

He watched Sherlock Holmes walk out of sight. Put back his shoulders and knew there was something else he had to do now. Somewhere he had to go. Someone he had to talk to.

o0o0o

He drew the Belstaff tighter around him. Flipped the collar higher, buried his face down into the blue cashmere of his scarf. Dropped his shoulders and shortened his stride. No-one inside the beautiful, ornate church should recognise him.

He was there to see and observe, not to be seen.

The close London community of Little Italy, situated in Clerkenwell and Farringdon, was alien to him. While in the shadow of St Paul's Cathedral and facing the high class jewellery quarter of Hatton Garden, stood the handsome church that was the centre of Italian life in the city.

He had walked past the church the evening before on his perambulations. Had not really expected to come to St Peter's that day, but as time went on he had felt impelled to. It was the only chance of a lead he had. So he had to follow it.

He knew that the church of St Peter of All Nations was styled after a basilica church in Rome, had been the first basilica church in England, opened in 1863, but had never been inside.

So he now followed a young family into church, allowing a little girl of about four to stand on his foot so he could bend down to steady her, exchange a smile and a word with the mother, and give every appearance of being part of the group as they crossed the threshold together.

Once inside the great light space, with it's marble pillars and red carpets, he tucked himself into the end of a pew at the rear of the church, all the better to watch the service, to watch the congregation. To look for Enrico Baldissi.

Sitting next to an elderly couple, he buried his face in the order of service and watched the church fill. Those people he could not see at the moment would pass before him as they approached the alter to take their communion of bread and wine, and the setting suddenly reminded him of attending chapel back at Harrow.

Light filtering through tall lancet windows, dusty hymn books, silver for the collection plate, following the organist not the congregation, taking turns standing at the lectern and delivering the reading. Not much different here. Apart from the foreign language, the richness of the robes worn by the priests, the sweet heady smell of incense.

He consciously relaxed a tension in his shoulders that would give him away to anyone watching. He had still not slept, but was clean now, bathed, newly shaved, in fresh clothes.

When he returned to Baker Street after leaving the Watsons his first task had been to get the paint off the wall. Mrs Hudson walked in half way through, told him he was making a mess worse, and disappeared to return with some foul smelling solvent, which did the job in minutes.

"Have you been writing on the walls again?" she asked.

"Something like that," he replied. Then: "Did I have any visitors while I was away?"

"Of course not. Why would I have let anyone in when I wasn't expecting you back? "And anyway, I was busy spring cleaning, as you were away. Threw open the doors and windows and let the fresh air in, even if it was cold."

He smiled at her. Now knew how Baldissi had got in to write his dread message on the wall. An opportunity so simple. An open rear window: quickly in and out, unobserved. It just required nerve and a little athleticism.

One little mystery solved. But there were many more…

When he had showered and changed, he found an unexpected visitor hovering on the doorstep as he came through to the sitting room from his bedroom. And stopped in his tracks at the sight of her in the doorway..

"I'm leaving for Aalborg later," she greeted him.

Fidgety hands, uncertain smile, looks that lingered. Seen in daylight, in a simple blue skater dress with leggings and boots under a plain silver duvet coat, she assumed an eco chic look, slighter and prettier than he remembered. But no violin with her this time.

"It's still in the hotel safe," she said, answering his look.

"What are you doing here?"

There was no welcome in his voice, only interrogation, and she heard the absence, frowned.

Something different about him now, she thought. Elegant, self contained, at ease in his own environment. Which was a cluttered and old fashioned flat. A comfortable, untidy, bachelor pad. Not what she had expected. It's masculine cosiness made her smile.

"I just wanted to thank you properly for saving me last night."

"How did you find me?" He ignored that, brusque and awkward. There was a wrinkle over his nose and between his eyes. She found it human and charming.

"I went back to the church crypt. Asked that young vicar, Theo. He gave me your address. Said you were no angel of death, more Jude than Azrael. His saint of lost causes, he said."

He laughed then, and it was a genuine laugh. Changed his while demeanour, and she was glad of it. Without the spur of danger to give him his ferocious fascination, she had been beginning to find him daunting and a little frightening in the light of day. Although still handsome and captivating.

She gained confidence because of that laugh, stepped forward and put her hand on his arm, reached up as far as she could and kissed his cheek. He felt warmer than he looked, wore a crisp aroma of expensive citrus cologne.

"You don't have to do that," he said neutrally, not turning into her touch or returning it, not reacting at all. Just looked down at her, something reserved and quizzical in his grey unreadable eyes.

"No, I don't," she said. "But I owe you my life. And I like you. To kiss you is no hardship."

He still did not react. Did not smile "Despite your lack of social graces," she added lightly. "As you said yourself."

She put her bag down and scrabbled in it. Took out a pen and a little notebook, and wrote, handed him the sheet.

"That's my name and address in Aalborg and my mobile number. If you are going to be in Aalborg over the next few weeks, give me a call. Or even if you're not - give me a call anyway."

He looked at her, she thought, as if he did not understand a word she was saying. Or why she was saying it.

"You are being very…." he sought a word. "Forward. Why would you want me to phone you?"

"I said. I owe you my life and I like you."

He shook his head, made no answer and no promise, but turned and lifted his own violin from beside the desk. And wordlessly offered it to her.

She took it automatically and stroked it.

"I thought you were joking last night," she said, looking up into his face with a sort of wonder. "This is a Guarneri! Tell me about it!"

"It was my grandmother's." Finally he smiled slightly. "Her grandfather's before that. It has been in my family a long time. It is called the Vernet Guarneri I learnt to play on it."

She plucked notes from the strings with her fingertips in something like wonder. He handed her his bow, just as she had done for him hours earlier, and, standing beside the window where he himself usually stood to play, she began the long controlled introduction to a Bach partita before breaking off with a rueful grin.

He was watching her silently from beside the fireplace, head high, arms folded, expression unreadable.

"Violins are irresistible," she said, almost apologetically, and handed it back to him to put down on the desk. From her pocket she took a folded slip of paper.

"My schedule for the next few weeks. Just in case there is the chance of seeing you again," she said.

"Why would you want to see me again?"

"Perhaps because I like you?" she turned her statement into a question halfway through saying it, unsure of his reactions to her, uncertain as to whether he was joking, whether his apparent failure to recognise her attraction to him and act upon it was a joke, or perhaps a ruse to tease out her attention.

"Why would you like me?"

The question should have sounded coquettish, teasing, challenging, disillusioned even, but just seemed almost childishly naïve. His concentration, like last night, mainly elsewhere.

"All sorts of reasons. Because you are a violinist, and it is good to find someone to share that with who is not competitive. Also because I do not have time to be subtle, I am never in one place for long, am tied to an impossible schedule."

He looked at her. Unusually indecisive. He could read people. He had always been able to read people. Read body language and psychological tells. Understood motivations, however deep and dark.

Yet now he was brought to a complete halt by a slight Russian girl with a violin. Who was a world class violinist with the world at her feet. And because he could not understand why she should appear attracted to him.

That in itself was a problem. He did not want anyone attracted to him. Did not want that sort of closeness or that complication in his life. Especially as at that moment all he could think about was the problem of Enrico Baldissi.

And yet Alyssa Almedova was going to Aalborg. Aalborg was probably the key to tracking down and catching Baldissi. It had been the home and the original business base of Charles Augustus Magnussen. Shadows, and echoes and connections lay in wait in Aalborg.

It was still the home of Magnussen's brothers, Pedder and Johan. The home of Detektive Inspektor Christina Ravn. The base of Colonel Piet Bruhl. And the place where he had solved a serial killing when he was recuperating from near death and was hovering between stepping out of his old world altogether or going back to solving crimes and risking death. Risking death again and again and again until he achieved it.

With the whole wide world to focus on - was the Aalborg connection fate or fancy? Coincidence or conspiracy? Was she really attracted to him? (And if she really was attracted to him , why was she attracted to him?) Or was she a stalking horse? Bait? Honey trap? A spy?

Had the entire dangerous confrontation on Waterloo Bridge been play acting of a high order to draw him closer into a trap? Or was the attempted robbery of the Holderness Guarneri just that - an attempted robbery foiled by his appearance on the scene? Or something in between?

Was this girl musician a guilty party or an innocent one? And was every word she had said, every smile and every touch, ingenuous attraction or a cunning game of hearts? He needed to know, but there was no way he could ask.

Not enough data yet to be able to tell. But if this willow wand of a girl could bring him closer to finding Baldissi….. how could he not play the girl and play the game?

Whether Baldissi was about to use the Aalborg connection now or later, Sherlock Holmes knew that eventually the road would lead to Aalborg and Magnussen's two estranged brothers.

"That must be a trial for you," he responded. He could hear the iron in his voice, and deliberately softened it then, bent his head and tried a small smile.

It looked to her as if even such small smiles were alien to him, and she realised that although this man was a cliché of tall dark and handsome, his responses and his mind were not. So she smiled back and waited.

He looked at her properly for the first time then, she thought, then looked at the sheet of paper and the list, folded them and put both in his pocket.

"Thank you for those," he said, polite and formal. "I am working at the moment, so it is hard to say when I may be available" She watched him blink and change some mental gear as he looked at her." But it would be good to see you again. So may I call you?"

"But of course! That is the idea!"

Her grin, and the way she flung her arms about his waist in what seemed such honest and natural reaction, made him realise he was supposed to grin back at her, so he did. Something unpractised and lopsided, and which charmed her utterly.

He whispered a light kiss onto her cheek, and she took the opportunity to turn her head into his and bring their lips together. Hers, small and seeking. His, warm but unyielding.

She offered her tongue to his lips very softly, and his mouth opened to her for the briefest moment before he stepped away.

"You need to get back, I think," he said formally. "Marco will be missing you."

She laughed to cover how disconcerting she had found that brief kiss. How it had stopped her breathing. Patted him on the cheek, letting her fingers linger on those fascinating cheekbones, and smiled into his eyes.

"He thinks I have just run into Covent Garden for some shopping," she said. "I must get a taxi and return quickly, before he misses me and I have to explain myself….."

"He does not like me and he is protective of you. It is sensible," Sherlock Holmes agreed.

"Too sensible. Too protective. A jailer, sometimes," she admitted. " _Ja dolzhna idti,"_ she said regretfully. I must be going.

" _Ja nadejus my eschjo uvidimsja. Poka,"_ she added softly. I hope we meet again. Cheerio.

" _Mozhet byt,"_ he responded, surprising her. " _Beregi sebja_ ," he added. Perhaps. Take care of yourself.

"You are a surprising man, Sherlock Holmes," she said, Turned away to pause in the doorway and whisper over her shoulder:

"My _choknuttyj."_

He understood the word, because there was a disconcerting brief bark of laughter. So she thought he was strange, eccentric, slightly mad? That would do, even if it made him seem fascinating. And if that fascination created a link that helped to reel Enrico Baldissi intoa trap…..he would do what he must.

" _Krasivo!"_ he called after her, hoping it was not too much. But he had seen someone do the same sentimental silly thing on afternoon TV, so some people must like it…. "Beautiful!" - as she ran down the seventeen stairs to the door. Watched her from behind the curtain at the window as she skipped across Baker Street to put her hand out to hail a cab.

Turned away, ready to go to church.

o0o0o

And now here he was. Participating in a mass. Through the entrance chant and the penitential act, the absolution and the question and response of the service. Hymns and psalms, readings and prayers, _kyrie eleison_ and litany and alleluia Blessing and homily and offertory chant.

The process and the pageantry rolled over him, and when the congregation came forward to take communion Sherlock Holmes was all eyes and concentration. Towards the end, just when he thought Angelo had been wrong, that he had wasted his time on a wild goose chase, a lurch in his heart told him his target was there - there at the altar rail.

Perhaps it had been the suit than gave him away: the expensive high tailoring of Rubinacci, a soft flannel suit in a Sixties shade of almost peacock blue. A suit to be worn by a dandy who knew his tailoring, in that neat Neapolitan styling with soft Mappina shoulders and a cinched waist that was so typical of the brand. A suit of higher quality and fashion than anyone else in the packed church was wearing. How typical of what he knew of the man.

Suddenly all the tension disappeared and he relaxed. Target sighted. He could do this. And he looked at Enrico Baldissi with detachment now. Slightly above medium height, slim build but with broad shoulders, a Mediterranean complex. Black hair so dark and shining it looked blue black, deep honey brown eyes with long feminine lashes.. Regular features that verged on the too-handsome. Dean Martin looks, Angelo had said. He had not been wrong, even down to the lazy, hooded look in the eyes and the lazy dominant curling smile.

Something amused and wicked flickered across the face, even when in church. A look that would be both appealing and irresistible to those people attracted to the outwardly attractive.

But also, as Sherlock Holmes knew to his cost, tough, determined, manipulative and cruel. He quelled the physical reaction and the memories…..kept his head down in his hymnbook and with his peripheral vision tried to keep track of Baldissi's whereabouts.

But all that was pointless. Because after the blessing and the dismissal, as the congregation shuffled forward to leave, there was an awareness of someone behind him too close into his personal space. The feeling of something sharp below his ribs.

The whisper of warm breath in his ear:

"Do not turn, or react, or try to run, Mr Holmes, Because if you do, this stiletto in my hand will whip out your kidneys before you even have time to cough. And then you will be in a pretty pickle."

He froze: how had Baldessi managed to get behind him like that, without him knowing? In the company of his peers and with a ferret like ability, that's how. He took a deep breath and nodded. Not attempting to look behind him.

"So good to see you being sensible," the voice breathed into his ear, the man with the stiletto insultingly close, leaning tight in against his back, a sexually invasive full body press, and Sherlock could picture the scene behind him: blade so tight between the two men it was invisible, the vase handle of the stiletto half hidden in a jacket sleeve. The true instrument of the swift and silent Italian assassin. "You see the man in the grey topcoat in front of you? Follow him."

He nodded briefly and did as he was bid. Eyes fixed on the man in front of him (younger, similar looks to Baldissi. Brother or cousin?) Out of the chancel, down the steps, under the arcade, out onto the street with it's bustle and daylight.

The man in front looked back to see if they were following, and Sherlock now felt another man take up station alongside him on the outside of the pavement as they turned left.

One hundred yards, two hundred. The press of people began to thin, but the two men stayed tight up to him, giving him neither space nor opportunity to resist. To risk an innocent pedestrian being hurt or killed by the flailing bodies, the killing knife.

He walked automatically, refused to let fear cloud his mind. Baldissi had made it clear: he was going to kill others before he killed Sherlock Holmes. So this would be a dominance play; a little goading, a little threatening, a little damage. Just to show willing. All his senses were on high alert.

"Here!" said the voice behind him clearly, and the man walking on his outside crowded up against him and shoved, cannoning him through the little Judas door in a larger wooden gate, tipping him over the high step in surprise and sudden violence, which caught his shins and sent him sprawling onto the cobbles under the archway that led into a small court; a yard that had once belonged to some small Victorian industry, but whose industrial buildings were now converted to trendy flats. He assimilated all this even as he fell.

"Dear, dear, have you hurt yourself?" said the amused voice behind him.

He did not answer, but rolled away and was starting to pick himself up and face Baldissi when other hands grasped the shoulders of the Belstaff and dragged him to his feet, pushing him forward and then down the eight blue brick steps that led to a basement flat.

So that he was trapped in a small space like a beast at bay. So that whatever happened to him in the next few minutes he had nowhere to escape to, from actions that would not be seen by idle eyes. Professional. Decisive. Deadly.

Three men crowded into the small stairwell beside him, and there was no chance that a policeman, a friendly nightclub bouncer or a good Samaritan would magically appear from behind the blue door of the flat and come to his aid.

The man in the grey coat grasped him again by the shoulders and pushed him down, so that he was lying - sprawled and almost spreadeagled - at an angle, his back, his shoulder blades, his backside and his calves cutting painfully into the edges of the steps. The grey coated man was now kneeling at the top of the steps above him, holding him down by the shoulders. Baldissi and the younger man looming over him despite being at his feet.

Sudden fear. At more than a disadvantage. Knowing how outnumbered and overpowered he was. And what Baldissi could and perhaps would do to him. He quelled the feeling. Stilled all movement.

" Nice to see you and all that, Mr Baldissi. But aren't you over reacting a tad? Or did you think I did not put enough money into the church collection plate?"

The slap was not unexpected, but lacked power. A gesture merely. So far.

"The smart tongue of the delicious Mr Sherlock Holmes. So good to see you again. Not dead, though. But don't worry, I will soon remedy that.

"Not dead like an older and better man of our acquaintance. You will pay for that."

He was smiling. The dark eyes had a golden glaze to them that was not reassuring, even though the stiletto had disappeared back into a sheath on the inside of the jacket.

"So. What are we going to do with you?"

"Kill me, I expect. Or just cut me as a warning to others. So very predictable."

He was used to manufacturing the haughty look, the disinterested voice, the stillness. He did so now.

"I will kill you. I could kill you now. But what would be the fun in that? I told you before. Too easy to kill you now. I want you to suffer. Watching the others suffer and knowing it is your fault before it is your turn. Do you understand?"

He leant so close to Sherlock's face he could smell the breath: spearmint toothpaste and aniseed.

"Oh, do let's cut out the little chat and the posturing. If you are going to hurt me, then just hurt me. I don't have time to waste on this little game, even if you do."

As he spoke, canted backwards, discomforted in more ways than one, he pushed his hands down into the protective pockets of the Belstaff; his armour and refuge at times like this.

"You disappoint me, Mr Holmes. I'm not here to hurt you. To warn you, yes. To make a promise, certainly. But now?" He leant in and smiled. "I am here to remind myself all I need to know about you."

"All you need to remember is that I win."

"Not this time. "

"This time."

His voice was as confident and disdainful as ever, but hands were digging harder, painfully, into his shoulders. And the other back up boy sat down on his ankles. The combined pains were exquisite, and paralysing.

He watched impassively as Enrico Baldissi drew the stiletto back out from the sheath attached to the lining of the Italian tailored jacket. Long slender blade, needle sharp point, the perfect stabbing weapon.

"How predictable you favour the Sicilian blade. Was the knife your grandfather's? Great grandfather's? Was he a Black Hand? He would be proud of you. If you are as good with that thing as you like to think. And as good at threats as you would like to be."

"You talk too much."

"You mean I talk too well."

Their eyes met. Baldissi's hot. Sherlock Holmes' cold and assessing.

Baldissi brought the blade slowly closer to Sherlock Holmes' throat. Pushing the thick wool of the Belstaff and the fine mohair of the suit jacket aside.

"The pulse in your lovely throat is getting faster. A little frightened now?" he laughed. Sherlock Holmes smiled back.

"Give over with the posturing. Kill me now. You might as well. If you think you're hard enough."

"Do not try to anticipate me," Baldissi hissed. The knife, resting on the throat, was a cold needle. But instead of the point breaking pale skin, it flicked open shirt buttons. Slit the fine cotton from collar to waistband on the right hand side. And then again.

He felt the pull on the cotton, how it tugged on his skin. Heard the susurration of the cotton yielding. Felt the cool air on his chest.

"These boys of mine…" the whisper was so close and quiet Sherlock Holmes felt the warm breath on his neck. "These boys of mine have no idea what talent and what beauty you hide beneath these garments, Sherlock Holmes. But I do."

"Charles took you and then made the mistake of becoming fascinated by you. And you killed him. I will use you again but I will not make that mistake."

The olive skin was so close the features were blurred. The head dipped closer and suddenly there were teeth around the small puckered scar in the centre of his chest.

Baldissi's eyes lifted to Sherlock's, and they were glittering with a strange light.

"Such a small, neat scar to mark the place where you took the bullet that was meant for Charles. It should be larger. As a measure of tribute to the man you killed."

The bite started as a roll of teeth, a little nip. He felt a breath sucked across his still sensitive skin. The nip suddenly became a hard fast bite, and the consulting detective thrashed for a moment in reaction, but remained silent.

Baldissi laughed into his eyes, and there was now a tiny fleck of blood on his perfect brilliant white teeth. Which he tasted slowly as if savouring, smiling all the while.

"You taste nice. Yum. Smell nice. Still using the Penhaligion, then? Well, why not? It is expensive, classy and it suits you. Oh. You are panting now, Mr Holmes. Is that excitement? Or fear? Or simply stimulation?"

He laughed and raised his other hand to brush damp curls from the high forehead.

There was a moment of suspension in which Sherlock Holmes neither thought nor breathed.

The stiletto clattered a little as Enrico Baldissi put it down on a step and reached a hand across. And Sherlock Holmes was appalled to feel a hand reach into the waistband of his trousers, seek the button, twist it free and slowly draw down the zip of the fly.

The instinct to try and curl protectively away, to try to get up and run could not be entirely quelled.

 _Too much fear, too much exposure, too much dignity lost…..too much like memory and nightmare and screaming terror. Kill the brain. Starve the imagination, Control control control…_

Baldissi's left hand went to Sherlock Holmes's right hip to still the automatic protective movement, to hold it down.

"Yes. These boys of mine really have no idea how beautiful you are with all these nasty clothes off. Or how good you are at what you can do. But I know. Do you remember, Sherly dear?"

The reply was clear and cutting and beyond disdain.

"You will get very cold and you will bruise your knees if you rape me here and now. Not very elegant, or impressive."

"Rape you? Here? Now? " He laughed.

" . no. You taste nice. But you smell nicer. When you smell of you. Every person has a unique smell, did you know? Sensory stimulation by human body odours define every individual's sexual attraction. Your scent is a guide to your genetic quality and physical health. So you smell like a very prime male With prime chemical attractants."

He wrenched the trousers down on one side, exposing a pale right hip. Bent his head with a disconcerting little giggle and buried his nose in the intimate crease between pelvis and hip. "And you smell very nice."

"The major histocompatability complex, the human leukocyte antigen and the different heterozygotic variations in your very male pheromones and facial and physical features all colour and decide your attraction, Sherlock. And you have lots and lots. Of attraction."

"Talking dirty to me now?" he replied. Voice admirably still steady, he noted. "I would be more impressed to see you spell all those big words…"

"Shut up!"

The mouth stopped talking to clamp down hard on the hip, teeth positioning around the bone. The jaw worked, the teeth digging in and clamping down, like a terrier with a rat. Bit hard and then harder. The deep shudder that passed through Sherlock Holmes caused the bite to harden.

"Oh, Sherly, I had forgotten how nice you smell and how nice you taste. And now I have left my mark on you. Just like I did before. Where I did before. Remember what we did before?"

It was a supreme act of self control that stopped Sherlock Holmes spitting in the face of Enrico Baldissi. He concentrated on the pain rather than the shame. On the impressions made and memorising the descriptions of now, not the memories.

He sucked in two hard fast breaths.

"Oh really, I would have expected a little more imagination. Some subtlety. Just trying to impress your little acolytes? Bedded either or both of them yet? Hmm? This is supposed to be a threat that frightens me?"

"Oh Sherlock, you disappoint me. Surely you know that male sex and most especially male rape is more about power - about domination - than sex? I will have you and I will have my power over you. Oh, yes. And only then will I kill you."

He slanted his head back to look down his body; the blood on his chest, the shirt in tatters, the disfigured pale skin beneath the open trousers. Baldissi crouched above him like a lover.

"You will really have to do better than that. This is not pain or humiliation to me. Makes you look just a beginner. Fuck me or kill me. But this? This I do not take seriously, Harry. Young Harry Baldwin."

The taunts returned had no effect other than to make the olive skin flush with either embarrassment or anger.

But to use the name - such a simple name - and the real name…..

"Shut your filthy mouth! I am Enrico Baldissi! And you will heed me!"

The back hand slap was ferocious this time. Rattling Sherlock Holmes's teeth, distorting his vision and deliberately cutting a cheekbone with the gold signet ring.

"I am Baldissi! And you WILL fear me! You hear?"

He clutched a handful of raven black curls and pummelled the head up and down on the worn brick step. After five savage thrusts, deep pain and pink and silver stars, Sherlock Holmes lost hold of everything.

Sanity. Courage. Control. Consciousness. And if the hammer blows stopped hitting when he stopped knowing, it no longer mattered by then.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's note:**

Baldwin: From the character Mike Baldwin, played by Johnny Briggs, in the world's longest running TV soap opera, Coronation Street, produced in Manchester, England. A character who was a successful womanising businessman who owned a clothing factory.

Buttered muffins: Traditional English muffins are not elaborate sweet cakes as in America, but a bread like, round yeast based bun that is toasted and eaten with butter and jam, cheese or marmalade.

The phrase Sherlock paraphrases is ' I'll sleep when I'm dead.'

Sicilian Blade: A long thin close action fighting weapon dating back to the Middle Ages and a particular vicious school of fighting with a stiletto which includes twisting the knife internally to cause maximum organ damage while still creating little blood loss.

Black Hand: An Italian American school of extortion, experts in threats and human manipulation leading to kidnap, harm or murder especially in America in the latter part of the C20th, especially in New Orleans. _Mano Nera_ \- or in Sicilian _Manu Niura -_ was a Mafia and non mafia group of criminal organisations of Italian migrants who even ran their own schools teaching the use of the stiletto.


	5. Chapter 5

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter Five

 _The gap between what is expected of me, and what I know to be true if myself, is very great._

 _Cardinal Basil Hume_

"How lovely to see you again! What a pleasant surprise!"

"I was just passing. Well….a slight detour."

 _Is 72 miles just a slight detour? Depends on the circumstances….._

" I needed to call in. I've lost my wristwatch and wondered if I left it here by accident? At Christmas?"

"I don't know, dear. Come in, come in."

The mother of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes swept him through the door of the 200 year old Cotswold farmhouse and into the warm and cosy hall.

It was a cold day. John Watson had driven out from London with the heater turned up full and the ska music of The Skatalites and Desmond Dekker soothing and numbing his brain. He knew he had to do this now.

Had to find out what he did not know about Sherlock Holmes. What he should know about a man who had been his best friend for so long, but a closed book for too many years. So start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. Home. Sherlock's home. Or what should be Sherlock's home.

She had his eyes, he thought; or did he have hers? A different colour to be true - hers deep and a rare true violet compared to the many shades of heterochromia iridosa in his that certainly reflected his complex personality - but there was the same cold white light behind them, the same sharp intelligence and clarity of vision, the same seeking look.

They had the same set to the shoulders, the same quick movement, even though she was old now, and, he realised, must have been older than most parents when she delivered her two exceptional boys. (Just like Mary?) But still beautiful, despite the weight of age, with flawless skin and thick ash blonde hair and an exceptional yet careless sense of style both her sons exhibited too.

Today, in slacks and a fisherman's gansey atop a hard white shirt with a flipped up collar, she could be nothing but the mother of Sherlock Holmes. It was reassuring, somehow. Unless she knew, knew just by looking at him, what he was after.

She led him into the kitchen and switched the kettle on with an easy welcoming assumption of shared coffee. Waved him into a chair at the table with a flap of the hand gesture identical to the one he knew so well from her son. It was quite uncanny.

Three mugs came out of a cupboard and she called vaguely into the air above her head: "Coffee?" for an answering rumble to come from another room.

"Sorry to bother you. Only it's my old army watch; sentimental attachment."

"Of course. I've not spring cleaned since you left. I'm sure it's just slipped behind something…" she murmured with distracted good manners. "Still nice to see you, John. How is Mary?"

"Very well, thanks. Gone to a spa for a few days. She's finding being so heavily pregnant quite uncomfortable." He smiled at her, and for no obvious reason added: "Sherlock's treat. He is already being a good godfather-to-be."

"Sherlock?" she asked, containing her surprise. " Well, well. You two seem to be very good for him. Have I said that before?"

"No." He grinned at her this time, the compliment taking him by surprise and being oddly pleasing. "But I'll take that."

"Good," she said, Made the coffee, put a mug down in front of him and delivered a third to another room. She was gone for mere seconds, but in that time Watson could comfortably recall their Christmas visit: charades and meals with unexpected laughter and easy conversation. Soul searching with Mary that changed their lives for the better. Drugs and death that made Sherlock's life worse.

Now Sherlock's mother came and sat down opposite him with a look of searching silence that was so like her son's John Watson did not even feel uncomfortable before it.

"I'm sorry, John, I'm staring. I shouldn't stare. It's just hard to think of Sherlock having friends. Bringing you home for Christmas. You both being so nice. And - yes - good for him."

"That's quite a compliment. Thanks." Normally he would have taken that at face value, modestly changed the subject. But now he was on a quest, and he needed to know things. "He's never brought friends home before now? Not even when he was little?"

"Especially not when he was little," she refuted, with a strong sense of irony. "When he was little he had a mother who had her own educational theories, thought she knew her son. Both her sons. What was best for them. That neither of them should want or need the distraction of friends in order to develop their exceptional personalities and intelligence." She shrugged and quirked a sad little smile towards the wall. "But you live and learn."

"Don't we all?" John Watson said lightly. "But Mycroft and Sherlock still turned out OK, didn't they?"

And she smiled that little smile again, this time into her coffee mug, but did not answer. He had no idea what was in her mind, and was willing her to answer, to give him information. So he changed tack.

"I'm sorry the three of us had to duck out the way we did on Christmas Day. Ruin your Christmas."

She looked up at him then, and her expression was unexpectedly sharp and penetrating, like a laser. Like Sherlock. Like Mycroft. He remembered, from Mary's discovery at Christmas, that in the past she had been a famous young mathematician, with the world at her feet, a string of publications he did not even understand the titles of. But something had clearly changed her career path and her life.

He wondered what, but realised he might never dare ask.

"As a family we are not unfamiliar with Christmas bringing ….something unexpected. But then, Christmas is always such an anti climax, is it not? We are not a family that likes Christmas. Which is why we rarely spend it together. So another disruption to Christmas was not…totally surprising."

"Another? Why? What….?"

"Our boys disappearing on urgent government business is not unusual. As you are well aware, John."

"And what about you being drugged?"

"Par for the course." She shrugged a little with one elegant shoulder. That gesture looked horribly familiar too. "We recognise our sons career paths can be very…..reactive, shall we say?"

"You are unusually cool and accepting of events that would scare other parents witless." he observed, striving to make the observation light and encouraging.

"Perhaps we are not ordinary parents. We certainly do not have ordinary sons." There was an edge to the reply he did not understand, and he frowned.

At that point John Watson decided the conversation was unreal. Had been unreal from the start.

"I think I would be proud of sons like yours; their achievements," he offered. "Even though neither of them can be easy to live with." He tried a smile, to relax a tension he did not understand, make the comment an honest and bonding little complicity between them.

"Their achievements are what would be expected. As unique as they are. The rest depends on your point of view. How they may live alongside other people is irrelevant."

In that moment she sounded so much like both her sons it made him catch his breath, For the concept and the logic behind the words was chilling, John Watson thought. Suddenly he had a new understanding of both Sherlock and of Mycroft, and who they were.

"But you lived with my younger son for some years. Worked with him. So you are also exceptional in your own way."

"As is Sherlock," he heard himself defending.

"Is he? She gave him a brittle social smile. "He achieves much. But not to his real potential. Or what we had hoped for. That is Mycroft. Obviously."

This time John Watson laughed to conceal his hurt, if not surprise, at the very thought of the younger son being a disappointment to his parents.

"A broken wrist killing his plan to be a professional violinist was bad luck. But anyone can find their science degree not being what they expected. All credit to him for carving his own unique career despite all. But that's Sherlock - he's unique. No-one could create Sherlock."

"Oh, that is what he has told you?" She nodded thoughtfully, but did not explain the remark. Continued with gravitas: "Sherlock created himself. Never forget Sherlock himself is a construct, John."

He felt his blood turn cold in reaction

"What do you mean, Mrs Holmes? What are you trying to tell me?"

She pushed herself up from the table and broke eye contact.

"Would you care to stay for lunch, John? Nothing special, just home made soup and a sandwich. Perhaps you would like to go and see if you can find your watch, now? And then perhaps have a chat with Father?"

The brittle social smile was the template for Mycroft's. And John Watson had to bite back a sharp retort.

"I know he would love to see you," she continued smoothly. "Welcome a distraction. He is taking down the Christmas decorations. Getting bored, I suspect."

She reached across for his now empty coffee mug and took it to the sink, turning her back and effectively dismissing him.

He wandered upstairs, feeling as if he was poised on the verge of having a great secret revealed if only he asked the right question, opened the right door, looked in the right place.

Back in the cosy west facing guest bedroom he had shared with Mary, he sat down on the edge of the high double bed and took the wristwatch he was looking for out of his pocket and set it down on the old fashioned quilted counterpane.

Automatically opened and shut drawers of the bedside chests. Making looking-for-something sounds and actions, to cover his tracks, his excuse for turning up at Sherlock's family home unannounced. Had he convinced Mrs Holmes? She was both very astute, and far more guarded than he had ever thought. Not at all ordinary, as his first impressions of her had been.

Which posed the question - why was she so guarded? And about Sherlock? Especially when she knew he was Sherlock's best friend? Guarded and disappointed and yet expecting nothing else; as if almost afraid of some aspect of him she had not made clear. And which he, John Watson, could not read.

Sherlock never mentioned his parents; but then, neither did Mycroft. Even discovering they had parents had been a revelation. Both always gave the impression they were born fully formed, strong, cynical and dressed in expensive suits.

Opening one drawer, on what had been Mary's side of the bed, he found a metal long tailed comb; an old fashioned long steel nail file. He sat and held them in his hands. Realised suddenly that Mary always took two items like this with her wherever she went, had copies of both in all her handbags. He had teased her about it once.

"A girl always needs to be prepared, John," she had joked light heartedly. But now, with his new perspective, his new way of looking at everything - had she meant the beauty treatment aspect? Or had she really meant she needed to carry makeshift weapons with her always? Just in case of unexpected violence? Because that was what an assassin such as she would always have done before? And might yet need to again? But that he had never noticed this? Never realised?

Why had he never noticed these things and put them all together? Had not added up all those little tells that Sherlock had seen through from the first?

He groaned and for a moment put his head in his hands. He had been such a fool!

No fool like an old fool. That was the old saying, wasn't it? Well, he had been that fool. He had been so alone and damaged when he met Sherlock that he had eagerly and gratefully been swept up into the crazy and dangerous but useful and fulfilling life Sherlock lived.

Against all the odds he had blossomed and found himself in a civilian life full of danger and adventure and inspiration, a life even more exciting than the army, and so he had never given it, or his future, a thought. Living the day was enough. It was everything.

But then Sherlock had leapt from the roof of Bart's to his death. And all at once the second chance of life he had been given stopped dead. And he was a dead man walking as much as Sherlock was the dead life force that had driven and inspired him. Grief and grieving, loneliness and emptiness. There was nothing else. And after being given a second chance at life by Sherlock, being dashed back into dullness and obscurity was even worse than before.

The walls closed in on him. Weeks of despair turned into months and years, and nothing helped. Until Mary Morstan looked at him as if he was something alive and adorable. And he turned to her as a flower turns towards sunshine. And was blinded by her light.

Even when Sherlock returned, he had stayed blinded. None so blind as a man who will not see. Especially as Sherlock saw. So he denied everything - and most especially Sherlock - even harder and deeper. Pummelled Sherlock physically for his insight instead of pummelling his own soul into truth.

Love twisted and turned in him, and confused with it's many faces. Yet the only hands that had guided him along and out of that maze had been Sherlock's.

And finally he faced that truth, saw it and accepted it. Still loved Mary, but both she, and it, were something different now. Quieter and clearer and more mature, without the desperation. Saw him admitting his love for Sherlock Holmes, the truest and strongest, the wisest and bravest of friends.

And now it was a bonus that Mary loved Sherlock too. Not just for his courage and clarity and faithfulness. But also for his objectivity and honesty and professionalism. And to have the man and the woman to whom he owed his life love each other too - despite the darkness, and the danger, and the closeness to death each had brought to the other - that was something special. Made him feel blessed. And now finally achieving some sort of peace within himself again.

Now all he had to do was play his own part in keeping them all safe. In finding the true heart and soul of his best friend. And to finally bring the long journey that had involved them all so tragically with Charles Augustus Magnussen to an end.

He stood up and rubbed his hands over his face. Left the watch where he had put it and opened the bedroom door. He could hear Mrs Holmes clattering her way around the kitchen. Knew Mr Holmes was in the back sitting room clearing Christmas decorations. He had time and space for this.

In cautious army-quiet motion he soft footed down the corridor. He opened a door. Mycroft's room. Mahogany antique Art Nouveau bedroom suite. Double bed with traditional silk napery, russet coloured velvet curtains. Classical elegance and understated opulence, like the man himself. This had never been a child's room even when the occupant was a child; but some of those childhood books remained on the shelves.

A French boudoir desk and balloon backed chair, a chess set and mah jong box. A cloisonné pen pot, filled with identical pencils all of the same height. He was amused at that.

Elderly well handled hard back copies of Robert Louis Stevenson. Verne, Dumas, Ransome and complete sets of Dickens. Scott and Longfellow. Pliny and Catullus, Machiavelli and Cervantes in a revolving library bookcase. A Brunelleschi architectural drawing as a print on the wall, and John Watson quirked a smile; a typical yet typically strange hero for Mycroft Holmes - goldsmith, architect and humanist, who discovered linear perspective and invented theatrical mechanisms. Polyglot and powerhouse. Mycroft Holmes indeed.

Little else personal in the room, no photographs or ornaments. Yet still a character tell of the man. He stepped out, walked further and opened the door to the other bedroom that shared the dividing bathroom. A smaller and more Spartan room in the northern corner of the building.

And from the untreated original woodwork, white with age, and the tiny cast iron original grate, this was once a servant's room. The younger brother's room. Genuine Victorian iron single bedstead with a thin old fashioned flock mattress. The bed stripped back and bedding folded neatly in equal piles at the end, army and public school fashion, not made up and elegant like the bed next door.

A brass bound military chest, pair to the one in exactly the same place in 221B, stood by the bed with a lamp upon it. A console table under the window with a beech chapel chair pushed underneath it to become a desk, bearing a small expanding book shelf. The back tray of the chair contained several classical music scores annotated in Sherlock's cramped spidery writing, and in the bookshelf - cheap and dusty copies of Futrelle and Bramah, Vidocq and Hugo in the original French, Bagehot and Hazlitt. John Watson could imagine the boy rescuing those books for pennies from jumble sales. Or was that too fanciful a thought?

This was a room of even less identity than Mycroft's. Not out of disregard for the occupant, but because of the occupant's imprint determinedly austere and anonymous.

He opened empty drawers and doors carefully; not quite knowing what he was looking for, yet looking for it all the same. Proper traces of childhood would have been good. Games, a teddy bear, even comics, perhaps. Signs of personality. Of the boy that was William before the man that was Sherlock. How and why one had ceded to the other.

What was oddly unsettling was realising how Baker Street so effortlessly overflowed with the complex personality of Sherlock in all his glory; books, objects, collections, pictures, tools and equipment, violins and artillery. Whereas the place where he had grown and been formed was a deliberate blank, and contained nothing of him but things disgarded.

So which was the construct? The multi-faceted man or the invisible boy? And how would he ever tell?

In something like desperation he opened the door of the Edwardian oak wardrobe; something - finally. Country clothes hung there, clothes that carried that dull flat smell of clothes untouched for years. Long black leather riding boots - _well, that finally explained ownership of the riding crop! -_ paddock boots, walking boots, black patent dancing pumps, all sat neatly on the shoe rail.

He knelt and reached blindly into the back of the wardrobe with a sort of resigned desperation, behind the boots, and his hand struck something like metal. Pulled it out. Daylight revealed a small square plinth beneath a mounted trophy. Inscribed, and he read the script.

 _National Junior Small Bore Shooting Champion_

 _WSS Holmes_

John Watson sat back on his heels and looked at the trophy in disbelief. Sherlock always - _always_ -maintained ignorance about the finer points of guns. Always left it to him; to provide the backup. More proof of secrets, of more truths withheld.

 _Good shot!_

 _You've just shot a man….._

 _Did you bring your gun? Is it in your coat? Come on, then….._

He reached further into the darkness of the wardrobe, closed his hand around a large draw string linen bag; the sort of games kit bag, as a schoolboy, he would have called a 'plim bag.' Thrust a hand inside to identify the sharp angular shapes within.

A collection of cheap plastic trophies so beloved of sports clubs: plastic posing as marble, wood, silver. Trophies for martial arts and dancing, artwork and single stick combat. Boxing and horse riding. Ordinary cherishable mementoes of youthful achievement. And all inscribed WSS Holmes.

Two weeks ago he had had no idea who WSS Holmes even was. But now he knew. William Sherlock Scott Holmes. A boy who had achieved in so many ways. Yet was somehow ashamed of his achievements and put them behind him. And who had won a shooting championship at Bisley, the home of British firepower, at a very young age. Sherlock.

 _So what had happened to negate all this achievement? To make him so ashamed of himself he had no longer wanted William to exist and had tried to erase the boy he had been?_

For a moment John Watson's heart ached. Only Sherlock could do this thing. Would do this thing. Only Sherlock.

He replaced everything as he had found it, left Sherlock's childhood bedroom and shut the door. Ducked into the guest room and retrieved the wristwatch. Ran swiftly down the stairs.

Sherlock's mother was holding onto the newel post at the bottom, looking up at him as he rounded the half landing.

"I was about to call you. You were an awfully long time…."

"Had to move the tallboy. You were right, it had dropped behind. Also found Mary's comb and nail file. She will be pleased about that."

He lied smoothly. Opened his hand to show his treasures. She took a second too long to smile politely back at him and nod. He knew she did not believe him, but was not going to make it an issue.

"You may like to go into the back parlour? Tell Father lunch will be ten minutes? Perhaps lend a hand?"

"Of course," he said, making a show of strapping the watch onto his wrist, putting the small metal things into his inside jacket pocket.

She unexpectedly patted him on the arm, and left him.

Mr Holmes was standing in front of the now cold ash filled inglenook fireplace, wrapping decorations in old newspaper and packing them into a large cardboard box that had once, by the labels, held a vacuum cleaner.

"Ah, hello John! Come to help? Good man!"

John Watson stepped forward briskly, rubbing his hands together, more than happy to take part in such an ordinary seasonal task. And Sherlock's father greeted him with a grin and a welcoming wave of his arms.

"A sad little task, clearing away Christmas. Went overboard a bit this year. Guests and suchlike. Don't usually have guests."

He was wrapping electric lights around a card to go back into their box without tangling, now. And John Watson quietly looked and observed.

The same tall lean frame and patrician head as his sons. The same effortlessly elegant bearing. He wore clothes well, even old green cords and a baggy blue sweater. Mycroft's cobalt blue eyes, a youthful, relatively unlined, handsome face. Seeing Watson looking at him, he said:

"Would you mind going up the stepladder and taking down the streamers? Only she worries about me doing that on my own…..afraid I'll fall."

"Do you often fall?" the doctor asked with casual seeming interest, drawing the old wooden steps across the room.

"Sometimes. I'm an old man, you know. Have accident prone days."

He spoke lightly, accepting of life, not frustrated by it.

"Don't we all?" Watson agreed.

He straightened the steps and went up them to unpin the streamers looped at the corners and in the centre of the low ceiling. Unpin and move, unpin and move. Mr Holmes held the steps stable, then gathered up the colourful paper ropes as they moved around the room in easy yet unlikely partnership.

In front of the window, John Watson had first to take down a glitter covered ornate paper bell; and as he lifted it and placed it on the top step to fold it in half, he automatically looked down. Onto Mr Holmes' head.

Grey thinning hair, scalp showing only from above….and something else. A line, a furrow almost - an indentation across the scalp, just under two inches long. The strong light from the window showed shadows and angles in sharp relief that would normally be invisible, and John Watson's brain lurched.

He was a military doctor. A field surgeon. He had seen every sort of injury, every type of traumatic wound and cause of death. His instinct told him this was the scar and the indentation to the cranium of a gunshot wound to the head.

Which made no sense. A teacher of classics did not get gunshot wounds to the head! So what had happened? And when? Almost without thinking he fumbled and scratched at the paper bell, and glitter from it's surface dropped onto the grey head beneath him.

"Oh! There is glitter all over your head from off this bell! Hang on, let me…." he stooped on the step, reached a hand to brush the hair of the tall old man below him.

His sensitive fingertips skimmed the top of the head, apparently dusting off a film of silver glitter….And - yes. No mistake, the distinctive feel of the groove of a bullet; from a hand gun, he would guess. Track mark along and though the bone, the puckering of abraded skin…an old wound.

"Oh, do mind!" the voice below him was a startled yelp, something between surprise, self defence and pain. Shocked eyes came up to meet his. Mycroft's eyes, to be sure…but oddly innocent and unguarded.

"Sorry! Did I take you by surprise? Glitter's gone. All OK now."

He grinned down with an open expression of complete honesty. "That's better." Looked. Watched. Saw the protective withdrawal, the shudder.

"Sorry. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"What? Hurt? No! No." He ruffled his hair, shook his head, watched glitter actually drop from his crown. "Sorry, John. Sorry. The top of my head is a bit sensitive. Had an accident you see. Years ago."

"Oh! I'm sorry to hear that. You are perfectly well now, though, aren't you? What happened?"

The older man turned away in a protective twist so like Sherlock's John Watson had to stop himself from reacting, apologising, even reaching out to reassure.

For a moment he thought there would be no reply, but finally Mr Holmes simply said:

"I don't remember. An accident, Yes, I suppose…." and his voice trailed away.

He dumped the last of the streamers in the box, took the paper bell and put that on top. Said with a new brightness:

"Lunch must be ready," and led the way from the room. John Watson followed. Feeling as if the earth had moved beneath his feet.

o0o0o

Home made cream of broccoli soup and smoked salmon sandwiches. Light and easy conversation. Civilised behaviour. Mrs Holmes at least on her guard, watchful. Of both her husband and John Watson.

They discussed visits to London and winter weather, country versus city living, the pleasures of retirement. Light, social exchanges when the voice in Watson's head screamed for information, explanation, elucidation. Not this silly chit-chat. For a moment he had a fleeting understanding of how Sherlock always became so frustrated by normal conversation.

Neither parent seemed to know anything about Magnussen's death and Sherlock's imprisonment, his aborted mission abroad. He gave the openings, but neither parent picked them up, as if oblivious. And as they talked John Watson became steadily and uncomfortably aware that the parents actually knew little of their sons adult lives; and wanted to know even less. Watson could not understand this. Or make any sense of it.

Eventually, as lunch was finishing, he said casually:

" I met an old acquaintance of yours the other day." And in answer to the unspoken question from both sides he added. "George Bradshaw. Remember him?"

Mrs Holmes braced herself back in her seat. Mr Holmes nodded.

"Dear George. A good man. Invaluable. Always so kind to William. Yes."

"Mrs Holmes?"

"Conscientious type. Overstepped his mark. Encouraged William in a great deal of silliness."

"Silliness? Sherlock? What? Games, you mean?" John Watson's voice was incredulous. The words 'silliness' and 'Sherlock' did not naturally go together.

"No. Not games." She looked at him with a stern blankness and deliberately deflected the subject. "Does he still work for Lady Smallwood?"

"Yes, I think so," Watson replied honestly. "Who is she?"

"Someone who works with Mycroft."

And she pursed her lips and became silent.

"Nice woman. Clever. George is a good man. Determined. Honest." Mr Holmes had been deep in thought, remembering.

When you knew, John Watson thought…when you knew, you could see the stutter in the thought processes, the slowness then rush of catch-up, just sometimes. The occasionally blank eyes. A good recovery. Probably some personality change. But all signs of the old shadow of gun shot wound head trauma. Definitely.

"Who was the other chap, dear? The young one?" Mr Holmes asked amiably.

"Gallagher," she spoke through her teeth, reluctantly. As if a true answer now was the only way to stop more questions and reminiscences.

"Ah, yes!" he said, lost inside his own head. He suddenly looked remarkably like his younger son, and Watson bit his lip to stop himself exclaiming over it. "Bradshaw and Gallagher. Robin and his family. Dear Robin. Still in the bowels of Whitehall, I assume?"

"Yes," she answered briefly. Then: "Would you care for anything else, Dr Watson?"

Formal. Brusque. Yet Mr Holmes seemed unmoved by the memories his wife all but denied.

"No, thanks, Mrs Holmes. That was a lovely lunch, though."

"Quite all right, my dear man. Good to see you."

"I should go; things to do. But glad to have been of help." He rose to leave. Felt he would be pushing his luck to stay longer, ask more questions.

Mr Holmes smiled amiably at him, stayed at the table, and said goodbye. So Mrs Holmes saw him to the front door.

"I'll be seeing Sherlock later. Possibly Mycroft. Any message for either of them?"

"Of course not. They know where we are if they want us. And vice versa." An accepting nod softened the stern words.

"OK. Just thought I would ask."

On impulse he paused on the doorstep, leant in and kissed her politely on the cheek. The surprise in her eyes and the way it softened her expression was almost touching.

"You are a good man, John Watson. Your baby is going to have a wonderful daddy. You will have new priorities then." She looked at him levelly and delivered the sucker punch.

"So remember my son is only a friend. He won't blame you for stepping back from his acquaintance. One of his better qualities is never expecting anything but to be alone."

He looked at her, wondering if she knew how alienating her words were, and before his brain had even shaped the words, he heard his voice ask, soft and mild, but curious nevertheless:

"Do you really hate Sherlock that much?"

For a moment she was silent and still, and he really thought she was going to slam the door in his face. And he waited, just to see if she would.

But she surprised him. She reached out a hand and rubbed his arm in a brief, placatory gesture.

"Oh, John. I am so sorry if I have given you the wrong impression. We both love Sherlock more than you can imagine. He has been a better son than we have been parents. Believe me."

"Then why….? I don't get it."

"No. You won't. Let's just say we owe him more than he owes us." Something moved in her face, something he could not read. "Our younger son was never a little boy, John. And he is always right. That is his burden."

"But surely…you mean Mycroft? Mycroft is always right?"

"Mycroft is pure intellect, brilliant and clever and unknowable. But Sherlock is something other. You may think you want to know him better. Which is admirable in it's way. But be careful what you wish for. And what it is about him you want to know."

She stepped back and closed the door on what would have been another question.

o0o0o

It was the kick on the shin that brought him back to himself. And the sharp nagging voice.

"Wake up, you pervert! Get up and get out of my way!"

Consciousness brought pain. No wonder he had stayed out of things for a while.

He was in the same place, in the same position, sprawled on his back leaning up the steps before the basement flat. Most of him felt numb with cold and the unnatural position. And his head was throbbing - no, screaming at him when he opened his eyes - from being hammered against the brickwork.

He groaned. Couldn't help it.

The foot slammed into his shin again.

"I said get up and get out of the way! And do your clothes up! I don't want to see all you've got. It's nothing special and doesn't impress me."

He flinched, shifted, groaned again at the sheer pain of movement. Focussed his eyes and looked down his body. Shirt still open and in shreds. Trousers still splayed open and underwear anyhow. Not just a nightmare, then. A reality. Somehow he made his shaking hands function enough to draw his trousers back together. Mutter some apology.

"Don't. Shut up. Piss off."

She was small, bent over with arthritic shoulders. Beige mackintosh, green scarf and hand knitted beige wool gloves. Two plastic reused supermarket carrier bags. Spinster. Retired. Former office worker. Two cats. Liking for Nice biscuits. Weekly treat of wash and blow dry, which was where she had been while Enrico Baldissi was taking advantage of the stairwell before her front door if the sculpted grey hair and aroma of old fashioned setting lotion was anything to go by. Old style Londoner from her accent, short tempered because of the arthritis and an all round disappointment with life.

 _Welcome to the club, girl. Want to compare notes?_

"Sorry….." he managed finally. "Sorry, mugged."

"Doesn't look like a mugging. Looks like the after effects of a sordid little shag in a dark corner to me." She watched him dispassionately. "Disgusting. People step into this courtyard for sex and shoot ups, or because they are pissed or hiding. No consideration for the people living here. Disgusting," she repeated.

"Yes. But I was mugged." It was a suitable phrase, and accurate enough. He levered himself forward to sit up and his head spun, vision fracturing. He groaned more loudly. Could not help it. She ignored him. Stepped round him.

"Could you….?" he began, not sure what he was going to say next. Something human, something embarrassing, no doubt. An appeal for help? Water? Paracetamol? Antiseptic?

 _God, how pathetic. How feeble. Listen to yourself, you reject of a human being…just stop emoting and pull yourself together._

"Absolutely bloody not," she responded vehemently. "If you're going to mess with Harry Baldwin you look after yourself."

He had been buttoning the Belstaff up to his throat to get warm and disguise his shredded shirt, but now he put out a hand and captured her wrist as she tried to sidle past him.

"Why mention Harry? What do you know about him?" he asked.

"Known him since he was a brat. Still a brat. I saw him come in here, with three other men. One of them you. I was across the road, in the hairdresser's. Four men in. Only three men out. I did my shopping, went to the library. Had hoped you would be gone by the time I got back."

"Thanks for helping," he said mildly.

"Not my business. I'm not stupid." She wrenched her wrist free, because he let her.

"Where can I find him? Where does he live?"

"No idea. Nothing to do with me. He hasn't lived at home for years. Works for a foreign businessman, I'm told. Goes under a fancy name these days. Still a snotty little freak. Stay out of his way. Safest."

"Thanks for the advice, Miss…?"

"I'm not telling you. I'm not daft."

"I know where you live."

"That's just a detail. Stay out of his way. Don't have sex with him. In his eyes that makes you his possession forever. Male or female, he doesn't care. Never has."

 _Tell me something I don't know. Please._

She finally stepped past him then, opened her blue front door and slammed it shut behind her without looking back.

He caught his breath and forced his frozen muscles to work, to carry him to the top of the steps and across the courtyard.

So Harry Baldwin was well known locally? Family lived nearby? Perhaps Angelo would have found more background to share this evening? He hoped so. This problem needed solving and Enrico Baldissi apprehending quickly.

 _Faster, work faster. I am too stupid, being too slow._

The man's egotistical behaviour was in no doubt. Nor his sexual or deviant appetites, his narcissism. All factors that added up to ruthless and heartless behaviour. Nothing more dangerous than a psychopathic narcissist with fantasist tendencies.

He stepped through the Judas gate and closed it behind him.

The sounds of the outside world assaulted his ears and made him rock backwards and clutch his pounding head. He crossed the pavement intending to hail a cab; but thought better of it. There was no way he could go straight back to Baker Street and have other people see his pain, his uncoordinated limbs and shaking hands. He needed to walk off the physical and mental shaking and the stress. But it took him a couple of minutes to decide which was the right direction in which to walk. Which said it all, really.

He ignored the passers-by who walked wide around him, looking at him as if he was drunk or drugged, and doggedly kept putting one foot down in front of the other, along Clerkenwell Road and onto Theobald's Road, pausing at the corner of Jockey Fields to waver down onto an empty bench in Gray's Inn Gardens and rest.

Had no idea how long he sat there, arms braced against his knees, pulling in air with conscious concentration until his breathing eased, his vision cleared and the shaking was almost stopped. Only then did he dare look up and about him, across the trees and expanse of neat grass to see the comforting Victorian terraces on either side.

That had been bad; worse because unexpected, but useful as a guide to the strength and commitment of his opponent. Sherlock had no doubts - as if he had had any before - that Harry Baldwin believed totally in his alter ego of Enrico Baldissi and would kill without question or remorse. But not until he had played his cat and mouse games.

The trick was going to be to gauge when the man would run out of patience. When he had taunted him enough. When the die was cast and the game became serious. Final. But he shook with impotent anger at not having been able to take out Enrico Baldissi when he had him within reach. Closer than within reach.

Next time it would work. Next time he would get him. Whatever it took. However much pain and humiliation….and if more of that would get a result.

He jolted to his feet with the anger of it all. Wobbled his way to the entrance and back onto Theobald's Road, and this time felt normal enough to flag down the nearest passing cab.

Gave the address. Sat back and closed his eyes. Waited to be delivered back to his home and safety. Relative safety.

He hoped Mrs Hudson had closed all the windows this time.

o0o0o

On the way back to London John Watson had dropped into a supermarket attached to a petrol station and invested in a Chinese meal in a bag, a bottle of wine and a lemon cheesecake. Bread and milk. Food for tomorrow. In the hope that both he and Sherlock would eat something. And preferably together.

His brain was whirling from the information, the impressions, the answers and the questions visiting the Holmes parents had created. Nothing had been as expected. Everything was going to take some thought, deduction on a Sherlock Holmes scale. Except for the one overwhelming impression - that there was something there. And it was huge and vital and a game changer.

And it was something no-one wanted to talk about it. So he needed to talk to Sherlock and to Mycroft….and just about anyone he could think of who had known Sherlock Holmes longer than he had. Or simply known Sherlock before he had.

George Bradshaw, perhaps? Even if he did not know how to locate him. Or Bradshaw's boss, this mysterious Lady Smallwood. Was it her husband who had killed himself just before Christmas, and who the Holmes family had been reading about in the newspapers on Christmas Day? And was there some other connection there?

He needed to speak to Mycroft. To start writing down what he knew so he did not forget anything…..

His brain was spinning as he stowed the food in the fridge for later. He had spoken to Mary twice on the mobile, had found out where she was, and was reassured that she was comfortable and relaxed and being happily treated and spoilt at the very famous and expensive health spa she had arrived at.

John Watson had expected his wife to be peeved at the sudden change of plans. Angry at being railroaded by Sherlock Holmes. But instead she was understanding and accepting.

"He's trying his best, John. Go with it. This can't be easy for him….. So tell him I'm fine and having a ball!"

And the ridiculous thing was - she sounded as if she was!

So he stopped worrying about his pregnant wife and started worrying about himself. And about Sherlock. And what would happen next.

They needed to have some sort of conversation. John Watson needed to have the words and the strange unexpected attitudes of Sherlock's parents explained to him by Sherlock. Because so much he had heard that day had not made sense. Had certainly not been what he had expected to hear. And contained revelations he was having trouble assimilating.

But how could he ever engineer this conversation? Get his best friend to ever answer his questions, confide and explain? This was going to need either a guile or forcefulness he lacked, or a great deal of luck.

He was so preoccupied with his bleak thoughts he did not hear the heavy black front door open, and only registered the footsteps coming up the stairs because he did not recognise them.

Too heavy for Mrs Hudson, he could tell, Too slow and ponderous for Sherlock. The step pattern of an old man, and an old man who had to pause on the half landing and catch his breath.

With his eyes on the door, he found himself reaching for the wine bottle and grasping it by the neck. Holding his breath. Just in case.

A key fumbled in the lock and the door finally opened.

"Oh, it's you! I thought you were a burglar. Or Baldessi with another message. I was about to deck you with this wine bottle!"

"Waste of good wine," rumbled the cliche answer as Sherlock Holmes stepped into the hall and turned away to close the door behind him. And then, still turned away, and in a different and much lighter voice: "Hello John. What are you doing here?"

"You said we needed to talk. Over a meal at Angelo's this evening. So here I am."

"Oh, yes. Had forgotten."

John Watson narrowed his eyes and looked. Looked closely as his friend turned back and stepped properly into the room. Because Sherlock Holmes never admitted forgetting anything.

At first sight he looked the same as always. And yet John Watson could tell something was wrong. Sherlock Holmes's shoulders were hunched up and curved inwards. He was deliberately turning away, even paler than normal and unusually dishevelled. Certainly he did not look like someone who had just returned from a church service. And he had taken a very long time to return from a church service.

The Belstaff was buttoned up right to the collar, even the red lapel buttonhole had a button through it, which was something John Watson had never seen before. And although the flat was warm, Sherlock was making no attempt to remove the coat, as he would do normally.

"I'll make a cup of tea. I'm sure we could both do with one. I brought in fresh milk…." he could hear himself talking for the sake of it. But Sherlock was not moving. Just standing looking into the kitchen and only vaguely in his direction, with his shoulders up round his ears, hands wrapped deep in the Belstaff's side pockets.

"Are you cold? Going somewhere?"

"No. Why?"

"You are just standing there with your coat still on. What's happened?"

"Nothing. I'll take my coat…lost in thought, that's all…..take my coat off. In my room."

John Watson watched his friend turn on his heel and move silently into his bedroom. Close the door.

And he realised his first impression was right. Sherlock Holmes was limping a little. Favouring his right hip.

He counted to ten. Called out:

"Or we could have coffee instead? Which do you prefer?"

And opened the bedroom door without knocking as he spoke.

The coat was tossed on the bed, the tall young man standing at the end of it facing the window, half turned away from the door, unbuttoning his shirt. As the door opened his head went up and he stopped.

"Coffee, then," he replied calmly. And then, after a brief pause: "I'll be out in a moment. A little privacy? If you don't mind?"

In another life John Watson would have muttered an apology and removed himself. But this was now. So he stepped forwards and around the side. To see that Sherlock Holmes had frozen with his hands undoing the third button down on his shirt. The only button still on the shirt except the never used collar button That the front of the shirt was slit or ripped open and lay in ribbons against his torso.

"Unless you've been doing an imitation of the Incredible Hulk transforming from David Banner, something's happened," Watson said, striving for lightness. "So what's happened?"

"Nothing."

"Sherlock, Mary always says she can tell when you are fibbing. But I can tell when you are lying. So I'll ask again. What happened?"

"I'm fine."

"That's not what I asked."

He put out a hand without taking his eyes from Sherlock Holmes's eyes. Eyes that refused to meet his, looking over his head at things unseen by anyone else. Reached his hand into the ribbons of shirt front, pushed the cotton aside.

Pale, sweated skin. A thread of blood. He pushed his hand in. Met no protestation, no reaction.

"Just leave it."

"I can't. I'm a doctor. Your doctor. What's happened to you?"

Gentle fingers and alert eyes went immediately to the scar on the chest. The scar he had seen as a freshly bleeding bullet wound, slowly granulating and forming scar tissue, had spent weeks watching mend and heal. The eternal mark that would always remind him that his wife had shot his best friend. And now that scar was bleeding anew.

He was a doctor. A surgeon. A professional. He had seen this sort of thing - and worse - a thousand times before. The revulsion still rose in him like vomit.

"Oh, shit! Who's hurt you, Sherlock? How could anyone…." he looked closer. "How could anyone - anyone - look at a scar like that? And then bite it?"

"The world is full of psychopaths and perverts, apparently," was the quiet, even reply. "Just like me."

"I will shake you until your teeth rattle in a minute…." John Watson began angrily. Then he looked at the bent and frozen thing before him and changed his mind. Made a little push backwards and the bed springs protested as Sherlock Holmes suddenly sat down.

John Watson leant forward to look more closely.

"That was a hard bite, meant to hurt," he observed. Tried to show neither disgust nor anger. "Take your shirt and jacket off. That needs attending to."

He turned and walked to the bathroom, glad of the chance to have something to do, to unwrap his clenched fists into busy healing hands and suppress his reaction. Returned with a bowl of warm water, antiseptic, ointment and dressings.

The consulting detective sat in the same position as before, but with the ruined shirt and suit jacket on the chair by the bed. Dark trousers, dark tousled hair; pale hands on knees, pale torso. A mystery in a puzzle in an enigma.

Watson knelt down in front of Sherlock Holmes and swabbed and cleaned and tended. No usual swirl of words, no running commentary, from either of them.

"Are you up to date with tetanus jabs?"

"Of course. Got shot. Hospital. Remember?"

"There's a bruise on your temple. Did you get knocked out?"

Yes." A pause, a grimace, a shutting down on reactions. "Bit of a headache. Slight concussion, I think. Had worse. Not limiting function."

Sherlock was still not looking at Watson or even himself, focussing on some fascinating grain pattern on his wardrobe door.

Automatically John Watson's hands reached for the bruise, the lump that was forming. But Sherlock's face was as cool as normal. The skin unbroken, only swelling.

"I can't help you if you don't tell me everything," Watson said as pragmatically as he could, trying to stop the anger and hurt coursing through him on his friend's behalf showing out. Sherlock would have no time or tolerance for indignity on his behalf. So he repressed it.

For a fraction of a second their eyes met. It was the grey eyes that slipped away first.

"Just. …." Sherlock Holmes stuttered. "Just….."

"Say it, Sherlock. Simply say it. It gets easier with practise, I promise."

The patient exhaled angrily. Flailed a hand.

John Watson watched three words form on those expressive lips, but no sound came out. But the lip reading was very basic.

" _John. Help. Please. "_

Words he never, ever said; not when he really needed to, John Watson reflected, as if seeing something new minted; words he only said when he didn't actually need help. Just always said, and so glibly, to prove a point, to allocate a task, to demand speed or time or attention. But this was different.

So now John Watson presented gentle, seeking hands. Skimmed ribs and stomach for more damage, from blows or kicks Sherlock had not told him about. There was nothing more. Yet perhaps the mere touch, the act of seeking was healing and reassuring. He dared hope so. Except as his hands and eyes travelled down towards the flat stomach he noticed a smear of blood on Sherlock Holmes' right side, emerging from the waistband of the trousers. And his soul jolted in his head.

"This was Baldissi's work?" he asked with a calmness he did not feel. Knowing the answer, really. Pressed on without reply. "What else did he do to you Sherlock? Tell me what happened. What he did to you?"

The voice that finally answered was small and very distant.

"I'm sorry. I'm an idiot. But who expects to be abducted from a church, John? By three men? One with a stiletto. You know the damage a stiletto can do, John? Much more than an ordinary fighting knife. A stiletto stabs deep, and you twist that long thin blade inside the body. Go for vital organs and arteries, figure of eight motion. And an expert can get that blade in, twist and kill, and remove it….in seconds. Before witnesses or even the victim noticing - if you are good, and you leave barely a mark.

"Enrico Baldissi can do that. I think his great grandfather taught him how when he was a tiny boy. I think he wants to be a top Black Hand. As well as torment me to death. Well, obviously torment me to death." That flip, dismissive tone of the last few words, so often assumed and heard, sounded oddly obscene now.

In a sudden uprush of frustration and fear, John Watson pushed his friend flat back onto the bed and wrenched at the trousers to see what he needed to see.

"Don't think this is a bedside manner that will catch on," Sherlock observed faintly. "People will talk."

And yet he lay back as and where he was pushed, not far enough up the bed to reach his pillows. Put his hand to the button of his trousers and unzipped the fly.

"Do what you think you must," he said. Put his hands slowly to his face, exhaled and covered his eyes. Tense, but unresisting.

"Sherlock. Please."

"You're a doctor. So be my doctor." The instruction was flat and resigned.

Watson's forced his hands to slow gentleness as he pulled the trousers down and exposed tender skin. The savagery of the bite over and around the right hip, the tooth marks and the blood smeared by the black knickers and trousers that had stuck to the blood and the skin, made him suck in a hard breath. Bruises were already forming.

"This was Baldissi too? Did he…." the words refused to form in his brain. "Go lower? Attack your genitals? Rape you? Tell me, Sherlock."

"He just wanted to leave his mark on me the same as he had at Appledore. Remind me about what he can do. What he did. I got off lightly today."

"Lightly!" the word came out as an explosion. "This is 'lightly'?"

"Yes, John. He intends to rape me again, but he didn't today. He wants the threat to be enough to drive me witless. That is his plan. Mental torture for him to relish. While he does actual harm to others. Until he gets bored playing games, or runs out of victims, and finally kills me."

"The man's mad."

"Doesn't negate the reality of what he's doing. And he's clever with it."

The voice continued to emerge from behind the long skeletal hands that obscured the face, everything but the damaged body hidden from sight.

"Magnussen was fascinated by me. Baldissi is fascinated by his plan of defeating me. He knows male rape is nothing to do with pleasure. It is about dominance and humiliation. And for me he wants maximum humiliation before I die.

"He intends to break me and then bury me. And now he has made a start."

"Don't say that!"

"It's true. And it's taking too long for me to counter attack."

The hands slowly left the face, and he raised his head to look John Watson in the eye with his customary unsettling objectivity.

"He may well succeed. He is mad enough. Committed enough. He wants to destroy the man who destroyed the man he hero worshipped. An eye for an eye, John. Vengeful. Logical. Emotional. Loyal. It makes sense."

"Could you stop talking as if this is just someone's mad little theory? He's going to kill you, Sherlock! And me? Mary? Mycroft? Everyone else, whoever everyone else is?" His hands tended to the bleeding flesh, swabbed and bathed and gently rubbed in antiseptic ointment. Positioned a loose dressing.

"You should have a blood borne virus screen. In six weeks, to be safe. Contact Molly. And a hepatitis B jab, for safety. You never know what infections Baldissi might be carrying…."

"Six weeks? Nice thought, but I will probably be dead in six weeks. Please calm down. Stop being so angry. A clear mind, John. Dispassion."

He was still lying flat on his bed. Motionless, as if incapable of movement. Yet the strong, objective voice was still coming from that weakened frame.

"No. You do that, Sherlock, not me. I'm too ordinary to have your game plan, your vision, your cunning. God help me!"

"Calm down, John. You have no need to exhibit the righteous indignation of the ordinary man."

"I AM an ordinary man!"

"Oh, John. How can you say that? You are not ordinary. You are extraordinary. Why do you never understand that? Never see that in yourself? You keep me right. You ground me, and you mend me. Told you before."

There was a deep silence.

"I know I should take that as a compliment, and be grateful for it. But that's just words, Sherlock. How can you say stuff like that to me yet still not trust me? Not tell me properly what's going on? Confide in me?"

"You have asked me to talk to you, to trust you. I always trust you. You should know that by now. And I do talk to you." The words had no inflexion, the eyes were looking firmly at the ceiling and John Watson could not read the mind behind them.

"I need more. To know the depths of this, Sherlock. Confide in me."

There was a heavy silence for a moment as at least one of them struggled to find expression.

"I don't know what that word means. So obviously I do not know how to." The old haughtiness was back. He lifted his head and finally looked again, defied John Watson to challenge that statement.

"In any case there is nothing to confide. This is just another case, now," he said. Neither of them believed it.

Watson closed his lips tightly to stop them saying something he might regret. That would stress and alienate Sherlock Holmes even he had been tipping into trust…

He put a hand lightly on the damaged hip.

"How much does that hurt? Do you need painkillers?"

"Of course not. Pain motivates me. Can I get up now?"

"Yes. But if you start to feel dizzy, or this hip starts to hurt more, let me know."

They both stood, and looked at each other with rare awkwardness.

"Just don't think about it," Sherlock Holmes advised as he turned away to strip off the dirty and bloodied garments.

"Easier said than done." There was a pause. "Your mother tells me you are always right. And that is your burden."

"You know that." He did not even bother to look over his shoulder as he spoke. Did not ask when that conversation had taken place. Denied any interest in discussion about himself.

"I am just starting to realise what that means." Watson persisted.

"Good for you." Terse, arch, three dismissive words.

And John Watson knew he had just lost him again. And could have shouted with frustration. Bit back all the things he wanted to say because he would have just been wasting his breath.

"I'll make that hot drink then. Tea?"

"Whatever. I must get changed."

Watson went back into the kitchen. Glared at the mugs as he waited for the kettle to boil. Today had already been too much. And the man in the other room he thought he knew so well was just adding new layers of complexity to the puzzle he always presented.

Footsteps on the stairs again. And still no sign of Sherlock emerging.

John Watson crossed the sitting room to open the door before the visitor could knock. Another case, was it? When they needed thirty hours in the day to deal with the case they had already?

He quietly opened the door - hoping Sherlock had not heard, hoping he could get rid of this person before Sherlock was drawn into another mystery - and was just about to explain how busy the consulting detective was when he saw who was now standing on the threshold of the flat.

A tall, lean and aesthetically handsome man in his early Fifties dressed in an expensive grey suit, fitted white shirt and plain grey tie. Sandy thinning hair, brushed back from an intelligent high forehead. A trim beard and moustache. Carrying a leather bag comfortably on one shoulder.

He looked down from his considerable height at John Watson, and alert pale blue eyes crinkled into a knowing smile.

"Fuck you!" John Watson exclaimed, shock loosening his tongue. "Fuck you!" he shouted, more loudly.

"You're dead! I saw you die! I saw you shot." He took two involuntary steps backwards, but held onto the door knob to hold himself up. Because shock made you lose connectivity to your limbs.

"You're dead! Or are you just another one of Sherlock's secret and bloody insulting dead man games? And not really dead at all?"

TO BE CONTINUED…..

 **Author's Notes:**

My thanks, as always, to the incisive medical mind of Kate221B, who keeps me right.

Ska Music: Seems unlikely for John Watson? Martin Freeman is a lifelong ska fan and has a huge collection of this music. So, yes, following the concept of cultural reference, ska music.

Gansey: a hand knitted thick fisherman's woollen jumper, usually blue.

Back parlour/back sitting room. The same thing. Just the differing vocabulary of the British class system.


	6. Chapter 6

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 6

 _Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunder and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and too light a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense._

 _Emerson_

"There was once a man who said 'Give me wine to wash me clean of the weather stains of care," Angelo Grimaldi said to the table at large, and lifted his wineglass to the people around him. "That is my toast to you all! Eat! Drink!"

Nods. Smiles. Mutters of approval. Other glasses lifted to echo his salute. He laughed and gestured for everyone to relax, to eat, to enjoy.

Because this was what his life and his work was about. Nourishing and helping and enjoying. Watching other people enjoying.

All except Sherlock. Who avoided Angelo's eyes, everyone's eyes, and sat with his right hand clamped around his glass of water. Sat and looked into his simple pasta with olive oil and a shaving of truffle while everyone else tucked into chicken pappardelle and tomato ragu.

Angelo Grimaldi exchanged worries looks with John Watson. But they did not speak and neither of them spoke to Sherlock Holmes. They would speak later, when all five men conferred. Because whatever life threw at people, they still needed to eat. Except Sherlock. Whose restless need for facts and data and action had been overruled by the hunger of the others. By civilised behaviour. By his own impossible standards.

When they had entered the restaurant - expected, anticipated - Angelo had greeted Sherlock, Watson and the tall stranger with them as the professional restaurateur he was, but he took one look at Sherlock Holmes, guided him down into a chair and pushed a glass of brandy into his hand - not a classic balloon glass, a simple anonymous shot glass - with such smooth professional ease no-one but Watson noticed.

And John Watson looked at that simple, undemonstrative gesture. He had seen Angelo do that very same thing so often before when Sherlock had entered the building, when he had been driven, or stressed, or implacable, and they had taken pause in Angelo's for food and peace and refuge.

Wondered, now, why he had always just accepted that as the norm, as what Angelo and Sherlock did. When it was in fact a gesture of love and care on one side, of trust and recognition on the other. Of one strong man reading the unspoken need in another.

That gesture stuck in John Watson's throat. How did Angelo know Sherlock and read him so well? And why had he never noticed or really registered that before? Had never remarked on that?

Even the very first evening after they had met, when they had come to Angelo's looking for a killer, Angelo had been supportive, protective, soothing. Another thing Watson had just accepted as the way things were when dealing with a strange young man whose behaviours never could be described as normal.

Like Angelo's jokes about romantic candles. The eternally reserved table. The constant attempts to provide a free meal for a friend, as if repaying a debt. The genuine desire - although presented always as a joke - of the restaurateur to see Sherlock with companionship and care, or out on a date; anything to see him cherished and loved by someone.

John Watson looked at Angelo, at the quiet attention of his head waiter and nephew Billy, at Angelo's youngest brother Mario, who was part of the party, and now saw everything stripped back and new minted. And decided a conversation with Angelo was soon going to be on the agenda too.

There had been a discussion about the table allocated - the usual window seat one - as Sherlock tried to have them moved deeper into the building, where they could not be seen from outside. But Angelo had waved his arms temperamentally in the air.

"We are full tonight, my friend! I cannot move tables or people around on your whim!"

"Not a whim! Safety!" Sherlock rasped in Angelo's ear. But Angelo shrugged, looked apologetic, said there was nothing he could do….and Sherlock finally accepted the impasse will bad grace, insisting the blinds be drawn to limit the view of the inside of the restaurant, their table otherwise in full view through the bay window.

"It is fine, Sherlock," said the tall stranger, who seemed to Angelo more at ease with Sherlock than Sherlock was with him. "If you sit facing out of the window you can keep lookout. Yes?"

Angelo watched this stranger closely. But the man was clearly known, apparently held no threat, and John Watson was relaxed enough. So Angelo became more relaxed too. If that was possible with Sherlock in the room, and clearly in a bad mood. Bad and distracted.

He did not mention the fact, but certainly had a headache, kept putting his fingertips to his temple, and when he did so he looked totally drained and exhausted. His voice was clipped tighter than ever, his tolerance level non existent. The bruise on the side of his head was now deep purple, and Watson saw how Billy had looked and flinched. But no-one mentioned it.

Faced with menus, he waved them irritably away, declined to order food. Watson pointed out under his breath how long it was since he had eaten, and when Angelo heard it had been two days since he had eaten or slept, he said he would prepare a simple pasta. Unlike the rest, Sherlock also refused to order a drink, so Angelo replenished the brandy and pushed sparkling water and breadsticks his way. Sherlock studiously ignored them all without comment. And it was that very lack of comment that worried John Watson.

Several times Sherlock cut across conversation to try to quiz Mario; each time Angelo - or John Watson - interrupted sternly to say "Food first," or "Later," or "Ten minutes, Eat first and be patient."

But he pouted and was patient with bad grace, knees jiggling, heels beating a tattoo on the floorboards, fingers tapping, hands never still to stop them revealing how much they were shaking, a scowl making the headache worse.

But finally the table was cleared, and the five men leant in towards each other. And because of the position of the table - on it's own in the window bay, close to the end of the bar - they were as private as the quietness of their words allowed them to be.

John Watson sat back and watched, as he had so many times before. And looked at the tall newcomer who was so familiar. Yet was not.

When he had answered the door of 221B two hours earlier, John Watson was shocked, frightened and disbelieving. Emotions streamed across his face and were reflected in the eyes of the tall and so familiar man with the ice blue eyes standing opposite him across the threshold.

But this time, instead of patronising disdain, two heavies and a power play of urinating in the fireplace, this man shook his head in a sort of half amused resignation. His lips lifted in a half smile, and his eyes crinkled into laughter lines.

"Dr Watson, I think? I am sorry to be a shock to the system." He held out his hand. "I have caused that reaction before. I look too much like someone else, I fear. I shall introduce myself, yes? My name is Pedder Magnussen. You knew my late brother, I think? From your reaction on seeing me?"

John Watson stepped back. Looked at the hand held out towards him.

"Magnussen? Pedder Magnussen?" he echoed.

"Just so. Charles was my brother. Two years younger than me. Cleverer, richer, and a lot more nasty. But I think you knew that?"

"My condolences on the death of your brother," John Watson heard his good manners mutter mechanically, covering both the shock and the uprush of fear. And finally he shook the hand offered to him. A confident, dry hand.

"Thank you. But not necessary. My brother and I had not spoken for over twenty years, so forgive me if I say his death was….not the loss you may have expected." He nodded, gave a half smile, reassuring politeness achieved. "Now: I need to see Sherlock? If I may?"

"Is he expecting you? Does he know you?"

"Yes, he knows me. No, he is not expecting me. But I need to see him. Now, preferably?"

"Oh! Yes! Sorry! Do come in,"

John Watson gestured Pedder Magussen to enter and stepped back to let him past and to shut the door behind him. Offered him a seat, and watched him cross the room to occupy Sherlock's modernist grey leather chair. Smile reassuringly at him.

"My appearance is a shock for you. I am sorry."

"No, no. It's OK. I was just…taken aback." It seemed very strange to see a Magnussen sitting so relaxed in 221B. "I was making tea. Can I offer you one?"

"Thank you, yes."

He passed through the glass sliding doors to the kitchen, and watched through the hall door as Sherlock - dressed in clean clothes now, neat again, and freshly buttoned up - emerged from his bedroom. Saw the visitor and came to a sudden halt.

The two men looked at each other with totally neutral expressions. Sherlock was the first to break the tableau.

"I am so sorry, Pedder. Sorry it had to be me."

It was a tone of voice John Watson had never heard before. Flat with total honesty. Shame and guilt and despair. But how often does a murderer come face to face with his victim's closest relation?

Pedder Magnussen rose slowly to his feet, never taking his eyes off Sherlock Holmes.

"Do not apologise to me. I will not have it." The voice was stern, and the face blank. John Watson could not read what the brother of Charles Augustus Magnussen was thinking.

Sherlock Holmes seemed to shrink and dissolve. Bowed his head and just stood, although one hand came out and braced itself against the wall. As if awaiting execution.

"No, Sherlock!" The voice was suddenly something low and impelling. "You forget what I told you before. Or dare you not remember?"

Pedder Magnussen took three steps forward.

"I told you my brother was a predator. That he would play you like a cat with a mouse before he killed you. And I think he did play you, despite you never admitting that to me.

"I told you cats get squashed by juggernauts. I asked if you were the juggernaut to squash that particular cat. But I think I knew, even as I said it, you were to be his nemesis. There could have been none better. Or more capable."

He waited, but heard no reply.

"I can hardly be expected to thank you for killing my brother, but neither am I here to wreak vengeance upon you, Sherlock Holmes. To absolve you, if anything. To thank you also," he said, holding up a hand for silence as Sherlock Holmes slowly lifted his head, shook it in denial of the quiet words." For removing the weight from the shoulders of my brother Johan and myself. You should know that. In your heart if not in your conscience. Put that burden down now. It is past.

Sherlock Holmes started to speak. But Peddar Magnussen raised a hand to stop him.

"No. No discussion. I am here for something else. A puzzle for you."

He delved into his inside jacket pocket and produced his phone, Clicked the screen and held the telephone out to Sherlock Holmes to see.

"This is our little brother, Johan. This is what happened to him yesterday."

Sherlock Holmes looked without expression or comment. Tilted the phone so John Watson could see.

A man - clearly a brother but younger, with a more rounded face and not a wearer of glasses - was looking uncomfortable, suffering the telephone camera far too close to his face as the photograph was taken.

A face showing pain and resignation, lips tight, eyes strained, normal laughter lines ironed out. Nothing special about the face. Except for three letters scrawled across the forehead in ugly capitals.

D.I.E. said the letters. Die.

And John Watson wrinkled his nose in distaste. Not just at the word, but at the realisation that the writing had been done with a blade. And carved into the skin.

"Jesus!" he said with disgust, and looked up into the watchful face of Pedder Magnusson and the empty expression of his friend. "What happened?"

"He was attacked by two men as he went to his car. Within a city car park in the middle of the afternoon. He was roughed up. Told he would die. But not yet. As a reminder he would have the words written where he could see them whenever he looked in the mirror. Or whenever anyone else looked at him. Carved into his forehead."

"What with?" Sherlock Holmes demanded.

"Some long thin knife. He could not see properly. He was terrified. Sure he would die."

"A stiletto," John Watson said with utter certainty. And Sherlock Holmes nodded.

"So we know who that was, don't we?"

"Baldissi."

"Who is this man? And why are you both so certain?" Pedder Magnussen relinquished his phone to John Watson as the doctor looked closer at the damage.

Sherlock Holmes briefly explained who Enrico Baldissi was, and where he had come from. What he took to be his mission to revenge the death of Charles Augustus Magnussen.

His voice was flat, his words almost neutral. But this other and very different Magnusson was not fooled.

"He means to make you - us - all of us - suffer. The man is mad."

"I fear so. He needs stopping. But his presence is both nebulous and mischievous. I do not know where he will strike next, or why. He is obsessed and therefore unpredictable. I am still learning who and what he is. But I will stop him, Pedder. Trust me."

"And why would I not?"

He registered the younger man's distress, and laid a hand lightly and briefly on his arm as Sherlock Holmes pulled away.

"Disfigured… like this…" he muttered to himself. And John Watson knew what he was thinking; about the quick deadliness of a stiletto, the spiteful humiliation of bites and carvings driving into fragile skin.

"Micro abrasion," John Watson said into the air. "The way to get rid of this nasty little bit of handiwork. Not wait for the skin to scar and recover over a period of months or years; get a good plastic surgeon to take back the skin even further and basically erase the writing. Not pretty, but quick, and better in the long run."

"Yes. That is what was recommended. He will be fine. Very frightened though. My little brother has always had a rather charmed and peaceful life. Until now."

"Few of us are lucky enough to live so long undamaged. Welcome him to the real world," Sherlock Holmes snarled as something feral and dangerous passed across his face. Realised what he had said, shook himself, and looked up into the taller man's eyes.

 _This is retribution. This is punishment for dispensing death. To see the suffering of the innocent and know it is my fault. My fault alone._

"And what has happened to you?" he demanded in the same harsh tone. "Something has. Something must have."

"Me? Why - nothing."

"You are sure of that? Nothing has happened to your business, your ex wife, a close friend?"

Inquisition now. Intelligence and interest and homing in with purpose.

 _Just tell me Pedder. Because there has to be something. I can smell it._

"No. Not to my knowledge." Magnussen thought a little, and a frown appeared between his eyes. "Well, just one odd thing…"

"Tell me. Quickly."

 _Yes! A lead! Yes!_

"Not something aimed at me directly. But…well, something strange. Odd thing to mention, really. Last night someone tried to steal something of mine. In London. Didn't happen, though. Someone intervened and stopped it."

"Tell me." he demanded. A whisper of premonition creeping around his spine.

"As you know, my passion in life is music. Classical music. Especially violin music. So a few years ago I - or rather, my company - purchased a very special violin. Which is leased to a record company on behalf of a talented young violinist."

Sherlock Holmes took a step backwards and became very still.

 _So. There really is no such thing as coincidence._

"You are Magnus Industries," he stated with certainty. "Your violin is the Holderness Guarneri. That was why you were so interested and reassured. In Aalborg When you learnt I own a Guarneri. The talented young violinist is Alyssa Almedova."

"Yes! But how did you….?" Pedder Magnusson paused, and looked, and considered. And understood. "Ah. I see. You were the tall, dark, handsome stranger who rescued Alyssa and her Guarneri. You who thwarted the attempted theft. What a coincidence. I owe you a great deal. The life of a girl and about five million pounds worth of instrument."

"Coincidence? The universe is rarely so lazy. My nocturnal walking route is pretty regular. Baldissi may have known that. And he would have time to mutilate Johan in the afternoon, catch the teatime flight back to London and lay a trap both for my person and your property. I think that would appeal to him.

"He is still taunting. Still playing his cat and mouse game. I must stop him. And quickly. This is taking too long…."

o0o0o

Now John Watson shook himself free of that memory to listen to Mario Grimaldi.

The youngest of Angelo's brothers, Mario was slim and handsome unlike his oldest brother's rotund and rugged look, and about Watson's age.

They had met no more than three or four times, and always at social events.

John Watson knew Mario Grimaldi was a jeweller. And knowing the reputation of the Grimaldi family, that he was also a fence and a remodeller. Most probably in the specialist knocked-off Asian gold jewellery market.

But now he was a source of information.

"The name thing was a problem, gentlemen," Mario Grimaldi said carefully, knowing he had the keen attention of everyone sitting at the table. "But once we established that the dangerous fugitive Enrico Baldissi was formerly the well known local bad kid and dick head Harry Baldwin, we were up and running."

He looked round And grinned at everyone; his brother, understanding and nodding. The tall foreigner, interested. John Watson, frowning and looking as if he was playing catch-up; Sherlock Holmes somewhere between exhausted and furious.

"Harry is well known in Little Italy as a big kid with big ideas above his station. Like so many of 'em. Find the world today boring and want the thrills and the glory of the dangerous best days of their _nonno,_ or their _bisnonno."_

"Grandfather or great grandfather," Angelo translated helpfully.

"Reputation as a thug?" Sherlock Holmes asked.

"More of a chancer. Nicking anything he could sell for quick cash, threatening pensioners for their purses, that sort of thing. Juvenile delinquent stuff. Got away with murder as he was a pretty boy with a glib tongue"

"So what happened next?"

"The word on the street is that, because he was pretty he got modelling work and moved into the sex game."

"Which would explain his connection with Charles," murmured the stranger, with a telling glance towards Sherlock Holmes. Whose mouth had become a thin line of barely restrained disapproval

"He hasn't been home to his parents' house in ages. As if he is ashamed of his ordinary law abiding parents. There are neighbours who say he doesn't even answer to his English name any more."

 _So that was why he became so violent when I spoke his real name! Why he was furious. Sees his real self as weak, subservient, ordinary. A past to be buried. I will remember….._

"That he's become a flash idiot. Dressing like Sinatra - sharp shiny suits, thin ties. Wants to be seen as a _mafiosi._ Like his great grandpapa. Whose name really was Enrico Baldissi."

"I see."

Mario shot a quick look at Sherlock Holmes, who now seemed to be having even more trouble just sitting still.

"Please do not mistake me. I paraphrase what I have been told the way I do because I have a cynical mind. Harry - or Enrico - is not a fool. He is a very bright boy, which is how he has kept out of prison so far. There are many who are impressed by him, and this includes half a dozen of his younger cousins, who spread his fame and will hear nothing negative about him.

"They hero worship him. Their glamorous cousin who came from where they came from - the same immigrant back streets and background, and yet who owns smart suits, drives a smart car. Works for a big businessman. A billionaire foreign businessman in the world of news and entertainment, no less."

"Did work," Sherlock Holmes corrected. And Mario Grimaldi looked at him carefully.

"Mr Magnussen's death was given very little attention in the press, Sherlock. It was Christmas time. Newspapers were more interested in the latest rock star being knighted. Such is life. This was a scuzzy little murder suicide in the world of the rich, with few facts, yet no particular scandal. Just another of the mighty fallen. The few people of Little Italy who know Harry seem not to have connected the death, or know of Harry's sudden lack of employment."

"Well, yes. Why would they bother?" Sherlock Holmes' tone was dismissive, and yet a shard of injury touched his heart. All that courage and pain and sacrifice, to be summed up dismissively as 'just another of the mighty fallen.'

"But I am assuming these devoted cousins have also been aiding and abetting?"

He thought of the two men he had tipped over the bridge parapet into the Thames; the two men who had been watching the Waldorf: the family support Harry Baldwin took for granted and his due, and which allowed Enrico Baldissi to see himself as special, and clever. Immortal. Entitled to be judge, jury and executioner.

 _Yes. It made sense. An impulsive boy of delusion with a mission. To become a mover and shaper. To gain a reputation to challenge that of his Black Hand great grandfather, an old man remembering questionable past glory and who had filled a child's head with dreams of the past and the future. And his own fate._

"Yes," Mario said honestly. "They boast that he has a mission to carry his _bisnonno's_ weapon, his _misericordia,_ That people will see what a brave Italian immigrant boy can achieve. How he will make himself famous by taking out a famous person said to be invulnerable."

Everyone at the table turned slowly towards Sherlock Holmes. Who lifted his head to look back at them with his most basilisk expression.

"He means me," he said flatly. And then gave a short bitter laugh.

"Do you know what a _misericordia_ is, gentlemen?" he asked. "It is a weapon for a mercy killing. A specially long thin stiletto blade to put down a wounded knight or a suffering soul."

He looked at the four men who were watching him closely, who were lost for words.

"He is right, of course. There is true method in his madness. He knows me so well. Knows all of me too well."

John Watson watched the still and upright man beside him put a hand, hidden by the table top, lightly and unconsciously to the aching hurt of his right hip, and felt a cold shaft of awareness and pain transfer to himself. And only he knew Sherlock Holmes meant the rape from the past as well as the attack of that very day.

Which none of the others knew about.

Sherlock Holmes stood up with slow deliberation, bowed his head to the others in a formal gesture of departure and walked smoothly towards the toilets at the rear of the restaurant.

The other four men silently watched his disappearing back.

"Would someone please follow him and make sure he is OK?" Pedder Magnusson's voice was so quiet and diffident it was barely a whisper. For a moment no-one moved. And then they all looked at John Watson.

He raised a placatory hand, and was leaving his chair even as they looked at him.

As he crossed the restaurant he realised his mind was a total blank. Not knowing what to think. What he would find on the other side of the door of the Gents.' What he would say to Sherlock Holmes then, regardless of what he found there.

The door arrester squeaked as he pushed open the blue door. There was no-one else in there, the urinals vacant, the door of only the furthest away of the three cubicles closed.

And he paused with his hand on that door, unsure of what to do.

"Go away, John."

Three words. The usual strong brusque tone.

"You OK?"

"I'm fine. I'm always fine."

John Watson did not know how to answer that, and heard his own silence, and the silence coming back to him.

"Go away."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

Four reluctant steps back to the door. The arrester squeaked again as he opened it, squeaked again as it started to close. He hesitated there for a moment, looked back, still uncertain.

A sudden throttled sound then, of retching, of coughing. A slither of a body dropping down to the floor. A fist slammed into a wall. Other sounds from a tortured throat he did not want to identify. John Watson closed his eyes, pulled a deep breath and willed himself to leave the room.

To cross the restaurant floor with a reassuring smile and a smooth reassurance of words.

"He's fine. Just doing what the gents is for," he said. "He won't be a minute."

And took a too large slug of beer to wash down the lie.

o0o0o

When finally the meal was over and the party broke up it was 11pm, and Angelo's diners were also winding down. Had eaten their food, exchanged their gossip and were making moves to leave.

So when a black cab arrived, unbidden, for the Holmes party, John Watson was not surprised to see that the broad shouldered taxi driver had red hair and wore a dark anorak and black muffler.

"Evening, Dr Watson," Davy Gallagher greeted the first of the three to leave the building, while Angelo and Mario stayed behind to talk, and supervise washing up and closing for the night. "Have a good evening?"

"You might say that," John Watson said. Distracted, eyes seeking Sherlock, who had paused in the doorway to say goodnight to Angelo, close the door behind him and lean into Pedder Magnusson for a quiet word, a detaining hand on the Dane's arm.

The doctor craned towards the two taller men to try and listen; but the night sounds of passing cars and pedestrians walking along the pavement between them rendered the words he wanted to eavesdrop secret and indistinct.

"If you could take us to Baker Street to drop off Sherlock? Then to the Savoy for Mr Magnussen, then me to my flat? That OK?"

"Yeah. Just as Sherlock had arranged, doctor. No problems."

He opened the rear door and John Watson entered, dropped the dickey seat and turned to sit with his back to the driver, leaving the main bench seat for the other two passengers. And realised he was doing this purposely so he could see all around the cab, along the street and across the pavement; to see if anyone was watching, ready to strike, or ready to follow.

But at that time of night the street was busy as diners and drinkers and theatregoers completed their evenings out to return to their homes. And although he could see two men standing under a street light fifty yards away, at that distance he could not tell if they were consulting their telephones or finding cigarettes. Or just watching and waiting. But he kept looking back to them regardless, himself invisible inside the concealing cab.

By the time Sherlock Holmes and Pedder Magnussen joined him they had clearly finished their conversation; the doctor watched them both carefully, but neither offered a word nor an expression that could be read. As if all conversation between them had been completed

Two tall, imperious men, who settled down to look out of their respective side windows, leaving John Watson with nowhere to look at all. Except at the thumb stimming against the fingers of Sherlock Holmes' right hand, a hand curved tightly between his thigh and the cab's leather seat, so that no-one else could see.

Except he had realised his friend could see. The hand stopped moving. He looked across at John Watson for the first time since entering the cab, and for a second their eyes met during their short journey to Baker Street.

There was something behind Sherlock Holmes's eyes that his friend could neither read nor ask for with another person in the cab. And a sudden shaft of premonition made him frown.

Before either could think of something banal to say to just acknowledge mental contact, Sherlock Holmes' head snapped up, and John Watson turned to see what Sherlock saw and was alerted to as their cab approached 221B.

In a break in the desultory late night traffic a man ran straight from the opposite pavement into and across the path of the taxi, stooping as he ran, not looking at the taxi after a hard assessing look, but running and dipping low now, with something dark and heavy held awkwardly between his arms, something that was thrown, and skittered with a harsh metallic sound across the road in front of them…

"Stinger!" shouted the taxi driver urgently. "Hold tight and get down!"

In his peripheral vision John Watson saw the rapid swing and heave of the driver's shoulders as he spun the wheel and tried to turn the cab out of the way of the barbed cable. But the vehicle was heavy, it's reaction slow, and from the lurch and jolt felt from inside, the front wheels at least crossed the stinger, tyres puncturing and dragging the taxi to a sudden stop.

As he looked and started to react and move, he was aware of Sherlock Holmes turning very fast in his seat, lunging sideways and forward. Putting strong hands to the back of his neck and that of Pedder Magnussen, forcing them both to tumble down into the footwell together as two sounds he would always recognise and could never forget rang around his head; the sound of breaking glass, the whip song of a bullet passing through the back of the cab.

Strengthened glass showered down over the three bent bodies as Sherlock Holmes, curled protectively over them - body heat, anger, fierce hands, citrus cologne - spat out a curse and levered himself upright again even before the cab had stopped moving.

The old Browning pistol he never usually carried appeared from the folds of the Belstaff, and he was wrenching open the cab door, was out and running; shouting with angry command, brandishing the gun and after blood.

Even as Watson and Magnusson picked themselves off the floor of the cab and disentangled themselves awkwardly from each other, even as the cab was still juddering to a halt, Sherlock Holmes was out and running, alone and away into the darkness in pursuit of attackers.

"Sherlock! It's not safe! Come back!"

But he took no notice of Davy Gallagher's edgy command as he sped off into the night. And by the time Watson was on his feet and ready to defend or to follow, he had disappeared.

"He was right!" Watson gasped to Magnussen. "He was bloody right! He knew something was going to happen!"

"We must help! Should we follow?"

Magnussen, pale with shock, tipped out of the cab, shaking sparkling glass shards from his shoulders, hunched and shuddering with reaction.

"Absolutely bloody not!" rapped out Gallagher, who had stepped out of his black cab and was blocking any rash movement in pursuit from his two passengers using his wide open driver's door and his body.

The quiet cabbie had transformed into something - someone - else. All sharp moves, cold and seeking eyes, military bearing and command. The stance of a fighter. He saw Watson look, assess, recognise.

He shrugged. "Yeah. Yeah, you got it right. I had a proper life before I was a cabbie." He lifted a shoulder "But you need to wait right here. You could complicate things going after Sherlock, become an unwitting target. As well as a clearly targeted target."

"So what do we do?" Magnussen asked mildly.

"We wait. See if the police will be here in seconds….or whether good Londoners act true to form and just ignore what has happened."

"And Sherlock?" Watson asked.

"He's a big boy. He can take care of himself."

Watson heard the irony in Gallagher's voice.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Don't ask me. I'm only a cabbie."

"No. You're not. You just said so."

"At the moment, for all intents and purposes, I am just a cabbie." Gallagher tilted his head to hear the sound of the two tone wail of a police car approaching at speed. "That OK with you, John?"

And then they were catapulted into explanations, descriptions, and analysis of what had just happened. Watched as the road was closed, the scene analysed, photographed, measured. Statements taken.

Innocent victims told their stories and made their statements, denied any knowledge of a reason for the attack. Did not even mention the presence - or the absence - of Sherlock Holmes. It was boring, time consuming and exhausting.

John Watson appealed for the clearly shaken Pedder Magussen to be allowed to get another taxi and go to his hotel. Who was finally released and finally acquiesced to his removal, leant out the rear window of the new cab as it drove away to demand of John Watson that he be kept informed.

Finally Gallagher was able to summon a break down truck, and was supervising his cab being winched onto the back of it when Sherlock Holmes returned and drifted quietly onto the outside edge of the scene.

He looked the same as ever. Belstaff tightly buttoned to the throat, scarf billowing behind him. Head down in concentration, fists curled into the side pockets. No sign of the Browning in his hand, no sign of injury or damage.

He looked across at the cab slanted across the road, the flashing blue lights, the police attention and the breakdown truck as he walked along the pavement, but those opal all-seeing eyes did not linger, and as they met those of first Gallagher, and then Watson, there was nothing more than a temporary shift of focus in them: no signal, no recognition, no reaction.

Without pause he opened the black door of 221B and entered without another look.

Watson and Gallagher regarded each other. Both relieved to see him return apparently unhurt, yet both puzzled by the untypical lack of engagement.

John Watson asked the sergeant in charge of the incident if they were finished, and quickly followed the consulting detective into the house.

There was no sign of him in the hall, taking off his coat and hanging it up, or chatting to Mrs Hudson. The door to her ground floor flat was firmly closed and she would be asleep now, all lights off; so no, he was not there. Nor was the Belstaff hanging in it's usual place on the hooks at the bottom of the stairs. So Watson headed upwards to the door of the flat.

Silence. A closed and locked door. John Watson used his key and let himself in. Surprised to see there were no lights on.

Feeling uneasy now, he turned the lights on. Called Sherlock Holmes' name.

But there was no detective draped over the sofa or watching police proceedings below from the sitting room window. No detective in the kitchen making tea.

No detective in his bedroom, nor in the bathroom. Increasingly puzzled and vaguely frightened now, John Watson ran up the fifteen stairs to his old room. Checked the attic hatch for signs of being opened. Ran downstairs again and cast quickly around the rooms again.

Stood in front of the hearth and called Sherlock's name again. Listened to the echo of his voice and the silence.

Tumbled down the stairs and outside again to arrive at Davy Gallagher's elbow.

"He's not there. Not there. How can that be? I saw him go in. You saw him go in."

The cabbie slanted a look, half turned away from the driver of the recovery vehicle he was talking to.

"Have you checked the wardrobes? The cupboards? Under the desk and table? Behind stuff?" The query was softly spoken, but caused John Watson to widen his eyes in something like shock, to bite out an expletive, turn on his heel and run back into the house.

"Sherlock! It's me! It's John! Where are you?"

No reply. So he took a deep breath to calm himself and checked again. More slowly and methodically now.

Cloaks cupboard. Airing cupboard. Behind and inside Sherlock's wardrobe. Under his bed. Under the bed and inside and behind the wardrobe in his old room. Even - scoffing at himself for such thoroughness - inside the ottoman on the landing.

There was no hiding place in the kitchen, and no-one under the table, but he opened the fridge and looked inside all the same. Feeling a total idiot. Glad he wasn't being watched.

No-one under the writing desk in the sitting room or the G-Plan table that served as a larger desk. No-one in the space between or behind the fireside chairs.

But as he looked more closely he could now see the indentations in the old Turkish carpet where the feet of the brown leather sofa usually stood, and showed it had been moved. And that the sofa was now standing slightly away from the back wall, slightly askew.

He froze, and took a deep breath.

"Sherlock? It's me. John."

He stepped forward, put one knee into the sofa and leaned over the back. And in the small space between the sofa and the wall, back to the sofa back, a small figure huddled on top of the disgarded greatcoat spread on the dusty floor.

The grey and red plaid blanket that normally sat across the back of the Victorian armchair John Watson still thought of as his was draped, Indian shawl style, over a bent head, and long thin hands were raised either side of the hidden face to keep the blanket forward and low and in place.

John Watson could not see features, just the bent head and the deep bow of the shoulders and those skeletal hands, clutching the edges of the warming woollen greyness, too tense to shake any more. A shaking, the doctor realised now it had stopped, that had been raging quietly all evening.

"Sherlock. Speak to me. Tell me what's wrong. Why the flashback? What can I do?"

He spoke as quietly and slowly as he could, trying to quell the horror in his heart. Sherlock Holmes always met danger with nerve, style, bravado, uncanny calm. Not this.

"Get away while you can. Leave me behind."

He knew the voice came from Sherlock Holmes. But he did not recognise it.

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Oh! Do! Please do!"

It was a wail. A childish wail. Frightened, impatient, pleading.

"Sherlock….look…..you're in Baker Street. Everything's OK…."

"No, John, it's not. "

The voice from the doorway was that of a stern Davy Gallagher. "And he's not. He's not here. He's there. You know a PTSD flashback when you see one, don't you?"

"Yes, of course. But this is not Sherlock. He's never had flashbacks like this before. Not as long as I've know him. Will you just tell me what the hell this is all about?"

Gallagher did not answer, but stepped forward and took off his jacket, dropped it on a chair. Knelt down at the opposite end of the sofa and peered into the small safe space that Sherlock Holmes occupied as a draped huddle .

"William," he said softly. "William. Look at me, will you? Show me it's you."

In reply the blanket hunched lower into itself, pressed further back. The hands dropped from the blanket at the head, wrists dropping, crossed in the lap. And in the lap lay the Browning.

John Watson and Davy Gallagher exchanged alarmed looks and struggled to control their breathing.

"Go away." The voice was quiet but contained a controlled sort of urgency "You shouldn't have come after me. Too dangerous."

"William. It's Gallagher. Corporal Gallagher. Remember me? We were sent to find you, Sergeant Bradshaw and me. Dangerous is what we do, boy."

They was a huff of what may have been cynical exasperation.

"No. It's OK. I'm OK now. I've got my gun, look" He brandished the Browning and his head came up for a moment. There was a smear of blood in the bruise by the eye. "Mr Bradshaw taught me how to use it. Mummy always hated me learning to shoot, but I always knew…..I would need the skill…always…."

"We tracked you down, William. Two weeks it took us. We weren't going to give up on you. Never thought we would find you. But we kept looking. So here we are, boy, in the _kothi_ house. Show me this person in front of me is really you. Tell me it's you."

A long silence without words or movement.

"S'OK. Doesn't matter. When they come to hurt me again….now I have the Browning….I will shoot them and then shoot myself. I've a full magazine here. So you save yourself."

Davy Gallagher turned his head away a little. Spoke so quietly Watson could barely hear the instruction.

"Ring Mycroft. Tell him to get here. Get him here now."

Watson nodded, stepped soundlessly away from the sofa and across and into the bathroom, where he stood by the bath and closed the door.

It took seconds to reach shakily for the mobile in his pocket and speed dial the number, and by then he had stopped gasping for air and was breathing properly again. The voice of Mycroft Holmes came almost immediately from the ether. As archly dispassionate as ever.

"Yes, John?"

"Need you at Baker Street, Mycroft. Right now."

"To participate in another of Sherlock's little dramas? Far too late in the evening for that."

"No. Not Sherlock this time. And stop being so bloody superior, you tosser." He closed his eyes for a moment and prayed for patience. "It's William. Davy Gallagher told me to get you here fast."

There was a disbelieving pause that lasted a beat too long.

"Are you talking about former Corporal David Gallagher, ex Two Para?" Mycroft Holmes asked with deliberate disinterest.

"Tell him 'Utrinque Paratas' and to shift his arse over here now," came a low voice from the doorway. And the door closed again.

"He said…."

"I heard." There was a tight breath and a sigh. "Twenty minutes."

And the call was ended.

Watson emerged into the sitting room to the same scene as before, Davy Gallagher squatting down at the end of the sofa.

"He says twenty minutes," Watson informed softly. Gallagher nodded. Still peering quietly in towards Sherlock Holmes. Seeing the bruise on his face, that tiny smudge of blood.

"Tell me what has happened over the past few days to do this to him."

John Watson smothered a cynical laugh.

"Where do you want to start?" he asked. "How long have you got?

Got his voice under control. And began.

"On Christmas Day he shot a man dead, point blank in the face. After a great deal of provocation that really had almost nothing to do with having been shot and almost dying. Twice in quick succession.

"Got knocked out on Christmas Day, attacked with a chair. Solitary confinement for a week in a police cell expecting to be charged with murder. Sent on a suicide mission and pulled out at the last minute. Took a mega drugs overdose in reaction but came back from the brink.

"Now he's on a ridiculous mission to find a man bent on killing him and other people. Not slept or eaten for days. Got attacked and assaulted earlier today, by the way.

"All this sounds ridiculous, I know. And it would be if it was anyone other than Sherlock. But that's the tale in a nutshell."

"Sexual attack, was it? Any other damage?"

"Yeah. And yeah."

"Perfect set-up for this happening, then. Inevitable, really. Bloody typical."

He wriggled down onto his stomach and tried moving forward. Stopped immediately as Sherlock yelped and started to scrabble backwards again.

"William? It's only me - Gallagher. I've found you. You're safe now. Come out. It's OK now. It's all OK."

"It's not," an urgent harsh whisper bit back at him. Sherlock leaned forward, put a dramatic finger to his lips for silence "If they see you they will kill you. And me. And then they will go back and kill the others. Only they are already dead, aren't they? Is that why you came for me? Because I'm the only one left to take the blame?"

The voice rose to a high pitch, on the verge of tears.

"Calm down. There are no bandits here. No blame. You are safe now we have found you. The others are safe, too. They are alive."

"You're lying! Trying to fool me! They're not alive! Everyone is dead! That's what I was told. Everyone dead. And it's my fault!"

"Nothing is your fault! Listen to me!"

Gallagher lurched forward, then froze as Sherlock picked up the gun on his lap and turned it slowly and inexorably in the cabbie's direction.

"You are lying! Everyone is dead, and that's why they kept me! They took me instead of the others because I was trouble, and to be an example to others, but then they killed the others anyway. To teach me a lesson."

"No. Put the gun down. They were lying. To control you and to hurt you."

"They found better ways to hurt me than that!" John Watson flinched at the cynicism and bitterness in the brief laughter, the intent in the firm grasp on the Browning. "But everyone is dead. So I should be dead. And you are lying.".

"They are alive, William."

"Isabel isn't alive…."

"But you already knew Isabel was dead. You saw her die, right at the start. But the others are still alive. Robin and the rest of his family, the parents…."

"Father must be dead."

"No, William! You kept him alive and he is still alive. Your mother is with him. In hospital. Gravely hurt. But alive."

"I don't believe you."

"Believe me. I'm here, aren't I?" Gallagher slid silently closer. "And if I'm here I'm here for you. So why would I be lying to you?"

At that Sherlock Holmes flung his head up, and the blanket fell back onto his shoulders. He looked at Davy Gallagher with horrified, tear filled eyes.

"I don't know. I can't think any more. So tired. Don't look at me! I can't let anyone see me like this!"

"Like what?"

"Dressed like this….." he gathered up the blanket, pulled it back over his head and turned an edge across and in front of his mouth, like an Asian woman with her veil. "Looking like this…."

"" _Oya araksitayi_ ," Gallagher said firmly. " _Tuvakkuva demuva."_

"Davy…." Watson began.

"Just telling him he is safe. And to put the gun down."

"He's not listening to you."

Sherlock Holmes dashed a hand over his eyes, wiped his lips savagely with the back of the hand in the way a woman might obliterate lipstick. Looked at both hands as if transfixed; seeing things neither Gallagher nor Watson could see.

"Hurting like this…..hurting…."

"Who's hurt you, William?"

Sherlock, still looking at his hands, crossed his wrists close up to his face now, drawing the gun back from Gallagher at last.

"Them. Everyone. S'OK. Doesn't matter. Kept everyone else alive, didn't it? S'all that matters."

He drew the blanket around his shoulders, hunched over and curled deep into the corner. Still holding the Browning.

Gallagher shifted forwards and put a hand softly on a shoulder. To be shrugged violently away.

"Don't touch me! Don't defile yourself touching me!"

"William….."

"Leave me alone. I am outcast now. Leave me here. Make the others safe."

There was an hysterical edge to the voice, and the body dug deeper into the corner. Davy Gallagher sighed and backed away from the trauma and the tears.

"I can't get through to him, make him trust me. Can't get him past it."

"Past what?"

"Past the past, John."

"You understand what he is talking about?"

"Yes."

"Then tell me," A shaken head, a rictus grin of frustration. But no words. "At least tell me what language you were speaking just now?"

"Sinhalese. Not important."

Davy Gallagher deliberately sat down on the rug, leant back against the wall and took a deep breath.

"He's not going to shoot us. If he looks as if he is going to shoot himself, we pile in and stop him."

"Yeah, I get that. You think he might?" John Watson felt the blood drain from his brain.

"He is lost in the past. Trauma, flashback. He thinks it is the only way out. He believed that was the only solution open to him for two whole weeks. Thought everyone dead, and to kill himself was his only escape from hell." He looked across with a hint of an apologetic smile. "Just giving you context, you understand?"

John Watson nodded, beyond speech. And at that moment the soft controlled tread of Mycroft Holmes was heard coming up the stairs. He let himself in and halted in the doorway. Looking. Assessing.

"Evening, Mycroft. Or is it morning?" Gallagher asked with studied casualness

"Conversational gambits are unnecessary. Thank you."

He looked unlike his normal formal persona. No briefcase or umbrella. No elegant suit, just smartly casual cord slacks, shirt and sweater, Belstaff Wellingbury wool coat. Looked younger, and even approachable, for once.

He stepped into the room, and shut the door behind him, eyes unerringly and instinctively going to his younger brother.

"What happened?"

"We got shot at tonight; just outside the flat. What with one thing and another…and already having been attacked today….it rebooted the past."

"Yes. So I see."

"Gently with him," Watson warned softly, unable to stop himself. But was unprepared for the venomous look this earned him.

"I told you to get to know who he really is. This helping, is it?"

Mycroft Holmes reached forward, hauled on the sofa, which he dragged forwards across the floor, to make a larger space where Sherlock hunched, with a protesting squeal of furniture on floor.

His brother gave one high scream and clamped his hands to his ears. One hand wavering at an odd angle but still pointing the Browning.

"Childish attention seeking. Amateur dramatics. Utter self centred weakness. Disgraceful behaviour, William. I am ashamed of you."

He strode forward fast and without hesitation, leant down and wrenched the pistol from his brother's hand. Passed it back to Gallagher without even looking to see if the former soldier was there to take it, and in the same sweep of movement delivered a stinging slap to the face of the man on the floor.

Who rocked sideways, taken by surprise. His mouth shaped another scream, but no sound came out this time. Tears of silent shock ran down his face, unheeded by either brother. Watson and Gallagher exchanged horrified glances.

"Pull yourself together. Don't show me up any more than you already have, you self indulgent child."

Watson flinched, started to protest, but Gallagher stopped him with a look.

"Get up, you imbecile. Start behaving with some backbone. Or what is the point of bothering rescuing you anyway?"

Sherlock gasped as if recoiling from a blow. And perhaps he was. He dropped his head to take two hard breaths and regain control. Then looked up slowly and the brother's eyes met.

Mycroft, leaning ominously over his little brother, did not move or give way an inch. Sherlock Holmes squared his shoulders. Shook his head, cleared his throat.

"How very typical. Never there when you are needed. Only when it annoys. To bully me."

"I was not there for you once. Just once in our lives. And you never let me forget it."

"Because that 'once' was the only time - _the only time_ \- any of us ever needed you. Upset Mummy. Let Daddy be hurt and Isabel die. Your absence did that. It destroyed me. Ever since you've been nothing but interference and a control complex. My punishment. Your guilt." The bitterness could have stripped paint, as well as Mycroft Holmes' soul. "So very jolly."

"That's not fair! I am here for you, Sherlock. Always. I am here for you now."

"That is meant to help and reassure, is it?"

He wobbled to his feet, levering himself up against the sofa. His eyes sparked defiance and challenge.

Mycroft Holmes looked away first, turned and opened his arms slowly to Watson and Gallagher.

"There you are, gentlemen. Sherlock restored to his obnoxious self. William back in his box and hopefully never to return."

He strode to the door and was out and on the half landing of the stairs before Watson could reach him and stop him with a hand clutching his arm.

"That was meant to be helpful, was it?" he hissed, so angry he was almost beyond speech. "No wonder Sherlock hates….."

"He doesn't hate me." For once Mycroft Holmes' clear blue eyes flashed, clouded with something unreadable."You think doing this is easy for me, John? I have told you before. The only way to help Sherlock is to push and demand. Sympathy and softness do not help a man who denies his own humanity.

"So you demand more, push harder. To help that man who cannot spare himself and does not tolerate human weakness, especially his own. And you die a little in the process. Have you not learnt that yet?"

And he angrily tore his arm free and walked away. The bg black door slammed behind him with finality.

Back in the sitting room Sherlock and Gallagher stood where they had been before.

"Well, I don't know about you two, but I've a real thirst. I'm going to make tea," John Watson said cheerfully, struggling for normality, to break the mood.

"Good idea," the cabbie said mildly. Still holding the Browning.

"Not for me. Must go. Find Enrico - Harry Baldwin."

Sherlock Holmes was on the balls of his feet, expression flashing to manic determination.

"Have a cup of tea first," Watson cajoled easily. "You need one as much as we do."

"Oh? Do I? OK, then. Five minutes…." he came out from behind the sofa and tugged it automatically back into place. Sat down at one end as if nothing had happened, head bent, hands slack. Gallagher remained positioned between him and the door, ready for action if needed. If needed to stop a detective going through a door.

Watson returned juggling mugs, and passed one each to the others. And all three drank in silence.

"I did not catch them. Just now. When I chased the man with the stinger," said a small, almost apologetic voice. "I will go get them now. In a minute."

Neither Watson nor Gallagher answered, not wanting to agitate, concentrating on finishing their drinks.

"A lot of sugar in this tea…." Sherlock Holmes began slowly, staring into his now empty cup. "To hide a bitter taste? What was in the tea, John? What have you given me?"

He surged to his feet, unbalanced, fell. Sat abruptly back down again. John Watson moved quietly onto the sofa and sat down next to him.

"You need to sleep," he said gently. "You will sleep. Tomorrow is another day. It will wait for you."

He caught the hands as they thrashed towards the face and there was a brief tussle; and he stopped Sherlock Holmes putting his fingers down his throat and making himself vomit out the tea and the strong barbiturate the doctor had given him.

"No time! Must go…"

Still held on to the hands firmly, and forced the younger man into stillness. Turned and hooked a leg across longer, leaner legs to stop them moving and trying to rise.

"John! No!"

"Yes, Sherlock. Be calm. You need sleep. Sleep now. Start fresh in the out now, as your are, sleep deprived, in shock and trauma - you'll make a mistake and get yourself killed. So just stop, now. Let go. Just for a while."

One look into the angry hurting eyes and John Watson was lost. So he looked away and just hung on as Sherlock Holmes thrashed and cursed and fought the drug and the doctor, but finally quietened. And finally lost the battle. Stopped moving.

His head sank back onto the cushions behind him, and all his muscles went slack at once.

Davy Gallagher, who had never left his station barring the door throughout, heaved a deep sigh of relief.

"You can let him go, John. He's out cold."

"Thank Christ for that."

He lifted his restraining hands away from Sherlock Holmes slowly and very carefully. Pulled a face as he looked down at the limp body, the blank face.

"But he will never trust me again."

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Author's Notes:**

'"Give me wine to wash me clean of the weather stains of care." R W Emerson. (1803-1882) American author, essayist, poet, lecturer and wise man, so eminently quotable.

Magnussen playing cat and mouse games: part of the back story to this one as covered in prequel 'Things We Lost In The Flames.'

Little Italy: A part of London bounded by Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Roseberry Avenue, a recognised Italian enclave of London for over 200 years. Mainly southern Italian (northern Italian natives mainly adopted Soho) The Italian population have their own Church, businesses and eateries in the area. Many other cities around the world also have their own Little Italies to reflect their immigrant Italian populations.

Misericorde: A long thin knife similar to the stiletto and used since the Middle Ages, specifically to despatch seriously wounded knights in battle, as the blade is long and thin enough to penetrate between sections of armour. Most used in Germany, Persia and England, the misericord was also used in battle, especially to pierce the eye socket and thus into the brain.

Dickey seat: Colloquial term for the flip-down extra seat in a black cab, or veteran car.

Two Para: The second battalion of the Parachute Regiment is part of the British Army, and was first formed in 1941 at the behest of Winston Churchill. An airborne light infantry unit that deploys and trains at home and abroad. Part of the Special Forces Support Group, famed for resilience and versatility and as a reactive 'fire brigade' rescue and resistance unit.

Utrinque Paratas: the Latin motto of 2 Para which translates as 'Ready for anything.'

Stinger: a metal cable laden with barbs that is thrown across a road to burst the tyres of and incapacitate a vehicle that refused to stop when under pursuit, as used by the police.


	7. Chapter 7

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 7

 _In gaming, any man may be a loser who does not play the whole game_

 _Jonathan Wilde_

He awoke too slowly. Brain heavy and barely working. His eyes were gritty and his head ached. His mouth was uncomfortable, too dry and with a metallic taste. The light hurt his eyes as he opened them, and for a moment he could not think where he was. Or even who he was.

Realisation rolled in. He had been drugged. Drugged without his knowledge and certainly without his agreement. Put to sleep and left to sleep for too long. He would be angry about that. In a moment. When he had pulled himself together.

The intensity of light through the curtains, as he lay there on his back, told him it was late lunchtime on a cold but sunny early January day. But he was warm and heavy in the bed. Within crisp cotton sheets that smelt of Pears soap and Penhaligon citrus cologne. Smelt of Sherlock Holmes.

And as soon as he realised that he sat up. Bolt upright, far too fast. Froze as the room swam before his eyes, and he bit his lip urgently to stop himself being sick.

 _Good Christ, how much barbiturate had Sherlock given him? How much had that cold calculating bastard given him to put him out of things? And for so long? And why? And where the fuck was he?_

In anger and sudden panic, and totally uncoordinated, John Watson tipped himself out of the bed onto his hands and knees on the floor. By the time he reached the doorway he was on his feet and groaning. And by the time he reached the sitting room he was calling Sherlock's name. Although even before he reached the sofa he knew he was in the flat on his own.

By then he was very angry. And he was scared.

How had this happened? How? And why? Why had Sherlock Holmes done this to him?

Last night he had put a hefty dose of temazepam - a powerful fast acting barbiturate - into Sherlock Holmes' tea and had doggedly held him down on the very same sofa for fifteen excruciating minutes until Sherlock had finally stopped fighting him, fighting the drug, fighting sleep and even sanity itself, and had fallen irresistibly into unconsciousness.

Finally he was able to release his hold, and finally Davy Gallagher was able to move away from the door he was guarding to stop Sherlock Holmes going through it and back into the world.

"He'll sleep until morning now," John Watson observed. Slowly disentangling himself from the long heavy limbs pinned beneath his own, guiding the finally inert body down into the full length of the sofa - head on cushions, feet lifted onto the other end of the seat, covering him over with two tartan blankets taken from the back of the overstuffed Victorian armchair.

"You sure?" Gallagher asked, and stepped cautiously forward to look down into Sherlock Holmes' face for a long time before reaching out to put the back of his hand to the hot sweaty forehead, to check the pulse at the vulnerable throat before he was reassured, before he visibly relaxed himself.

"He could have been faking," he muttered by way of apology for the precautionary touches.

"I gave him enough to stop a horse." Watson admitted.

"I assumed. Good move on your part, Thought he was never going to give in to it, though."

"He doesn't give in to anything. That's the problem. But there was no alternative, was there? He was going to kill himself if we hadn't stopped him. Run himself into the ground at the very least. He has become…possessed by all this."

"Yes. Poor sod," Davy Gallagher breathed.

John Watson stood up, dragged his eyes away from the rare and oddly disturbing sight of a still and silent Sherlock, and met those of the cabbie.

"Thanks for your help, Davy."

"It's nothing. I've known him a long time, you know. It's not all one sided. He has helped me in the past…more than I have deserved." A pause, and Gallagher nodded an acknowledgement down at the unconscious man.

"So are you going to tell me what all that was about?" John Watson asked

Gallagher shook his head.

"I'm sorry, John. I can't. I really can't."

"Amnesia? Official Secrets Act? Misplaced discretion? Loyalty? Cowardice?" John Watson's voice was taunting, sharp through reaction and fear. And he saw Gallagher recognise this, and smile a little in empathy and sad understanding.

"Yes," he said simply. "All those things."

"For fuck's sake!" Watson exploded, slamming his fist into the sofa arm. "This is my best friend here! He's been through hell lately, and today has been - well - just too much, even for him. Can't you see I'm trying to help him? Trying to understand what's made him like this?"

"I know," Gallagher soothed. "I'm sorry. But I don't have the authority to tell you. And Sherlock would not want me to. That's not pushing you out," he added hastily, watching John Watson's face move. "That's holding Sherlock in. He doesn't want anyone to know…what it was…how it is…he never has…..and I can't betray his trust. His parents' trust. Mycroft's. Can't tell you. Tell anyone."

"But you know."

"Yes."

"And George Bradshaw knows?" He made the question sound like certainty, and Gallagher nodded and confirmed the deduction.

"Yes."

"I don't understand."

"All I can tell you is that George and I extracted him from a…situation. Which was our job. Found him. Brought him out and brought him home."

"Not a holiday, then? Something awful?"

The cabbie looked at him with an unnerving, neutral expression that said 'yes' as clearly as if he had shouted it aloud.

"Don't ask me. Ask Mycroft. If you have to ask anyone."

"Oh, come on!" Watson urged. "You know what Mycroft is like - saw how he just reacted to this. Shouted. Bullied. Then just walked away. His usual superior self. Come on, Davy, tell me - I'm ex army too. Not much I haven't seen…."

Davy Gallagher moved his feet uncomfortably.

"I've got to go. Get the cab sorted. He'd want that. You'll be OK here with him? On your own?"

John Watson shrugged and admitted defeat. Admitted to himself Gallagher would tell him nothing more.

"Yeah, He'll sleep now until morning. I'll bed down next door, leave the door open, so I'll hear if he rouses."

"OK. But ring if you need me."

"But you haven't even got a cab!"

"That will be soon sorted. I'll have a temporary replacement by morning, and back at work. Sherlock's account will cover the costs. We've had our arrangement for a long time, John. Don't worry."

But he did worry. In the quiet after Gallagher had left, after he had washed the tea things and put them away, and then had nothing more to do that could busy his hands or occupy his mind.

He was not keen at the idea of sleeping in his friend's bed, but there was no alternative. What had been his old bed was a flight of stairs above and too far away. He had trudged upstairs and looked. But the bed was covered in half empty cardboard boxes, old files and dust. And the room itself was cold and a dumping ground, full of boxes of chemical equipment, disgarded reference books, haphazard piles of unidentifiable Sherlock style miscellanea..

So he toed off his shoes and reluctantly and awkwardly lay down, fully dressed, in Sherlock Holmes' bed - bedroom door open, the silhouette of Sherlock just visible if he lay at a certain angle - and worried himself to sleep. Remembering the fear and the panic and the agony of an extreme flashback the like of which Watson had never seen surface before, and knew absolutely nothing about.

Worried himself to sleep.

So when he was awoken in the dark by a firm hand shaking his shoulder, and his name spoken with some urgency, he was not surprised but relieved, for a long buried nightmare of his own had been disturbing his dreams and shaking his unconscious mind.

"John! Wake up! Wake up now!"

Sherlock Holmes was standing at the side of the bed. Not unconscious, not wrecked. Looking very much his normal self, although still wearing the same clothes he had been wearing earlier, dishevelled by sleep and time, and in need of a shave. Even in the half light through the curtains he looked fully awake and in control of himself.

"Sherlock!" John Watson exclaimed. Startled awake, and surprised to see his friend functioning as normal, yet frowning down at him in quick concern. "What are you doing awake? You should still be asleep."

"Neuro atypical response to drugs. High tolerance levels. You know that, John," he said patiently. "I was woken by the sound of you shouting in your sleep. Your old nightmares back again. My fault. Sorry."

"It's nothing. I'm used to it. You OK?" He sat up, and as he did Sherlock Holmes' hand, which had been still grasping his shoulder, fell away. A contact broken.

"Of course."

"No. I mean it. Are you OK? That was a terrible flashback …."

"I regret you witnessed it. But my excuse as well as my apology, is that I had a difficult day." The posture was stiff, the words formally spoken. At that moment John Watson thought he was speaking to an alien.

"Yes. You had." John Watson agreed. "What can I do to help?"

"You're doing it. You've done it." A sharp nod, avoiding meeting his eyes. "Thank you."

"Are you going to tell me about it?"

"No."

"Yet it's OK that a taxi driver knows? And Lady Smallwood's driver? Mycroft? Your parents? Uncle Tom Cobley and all? Everyone but not me?" The anger and sense of being excluded was rising in him again. And he saw Sherlock register that and grant him a sad, tiny smile he did not understand and which should have made him even angrier.

"Yes. But that's only because they were there, and you were not. Long before I knew you." The smile died.

"So I should just forget it?"

"Of course, yes. I have. In the main. It doesn't matter any more."

"How can you say that?"

"Easily. I can't change what happened. So I choose not to remember it."

"Can you do that? When it has affected you and your family so much?"

"Then perhaps it is more accurate to say I have no desire to remember. And nor do they. So it never happened…."

"But it did happen. And you changed your name afterwards. So it was a big event. Whatever you say now. Tell me - who is Robin? Who was Isabel?"

"Not your concern. Nor mine any more. Let it go, John. "

The consulting detective turned and picked up a mug from the chest of drawers beside the bed. Gave his friend one of his overbright manic grins. And John Watson had a sudden vision from the past.

Of a strange and supercilious young man standing at a laboratory bench delivering the same artificial smile and saying "potential flatmates should know the worst about each other…."

"I made you a cup of tea. Thought you would need one after all that shouting in your sleep. And I have one, too, look."

He handed John Watson a mug of tea, then brandished his own mug like some sort of proof, or prize, with raised eyebrows and the goofy grin he never showed to the world often enough. And John Watson laughed then, and relaxed, and accepted the mug handed to him with surprise reassured and in acceptance of a rare gesture by Sherlock Holmes of kindliness and understanding.

Sherlock Holmes perched comfortably on the end of his own bed, and sipped his own drink, smothering a smile. So Watson took a long draught of the hot sweet builder's tea and wrinkled his nose.

"I don't take sugar," he said mildly.

"I know. But I thought sugar would be good for you after such a hectic evening. I have extra sugar in my tea too, Oldest remedy for stress and it actually works. A good strong, sweet, cuppa tea. Can't beat it."

He grinned, and drank again, and John Watson returned the smile and drank too. The old ease was back. Sherlock had made an effort to put it there, John Watson had recognised it as such, and made his own effort not to question or to push, but to just accept.

There was a brief silence, until the doctor spoke.

"The last time you made me a hot drink with sugar, it was for a scientific experiment at Baskerville to check for drugs in the sugar. You've not done that to me again, have you?" His tone was light, and he smiled. But he had to ask.

"I can assure you there are no drugs in the sugar in my own sugar bowl. As if I would pull the same trick twice!" He looked up suddenly, and his eyes met John Watson's. The tiny smile again, that sobered and faded.

"I am trying to say thank you, John. In my ham fisted way. I was wrong. You were right. You were right to stop me last night. To knock me out with your chemical cosh."

John Watson frowned, disbelieving.

"Well - thank you. But you never say anything like that. What are you up to?"

His friend sighed, shook his head slightly.

"Do I have to be up to anything? I am trying to apologise. For running away with myself….my rocket tearing itself to pieces again. I need the way you stop me doing that, John. The only person I trust to….." he bit off something he was about to say.

"I thought…after last night…you would never trust me again. After drugging you like that."

Their eyes locked. Sherlock Holmes repeated his last words quietly, and without emphasis.

"The only person I trust."

"Great compliment, Sherlock. Thank you." John Watson found himself embarrassed by the calm sincerity. "But there are other people you trust, you know."

"People I trust to do their job as they trust me to do mine. A different thing. The only person I really trust. The only friend I have. Is you. Are you listening? Are you hearing me? I don't say such things often."

"Not normally. Not ever. " He quirked a grin, eyes crinkling. Then sobered when his smile was not returned. "But I know you, Sherlock. And I put nothing past you."

"I consider that a compliment rather than an indication of natural mistrust. Drink up."

They finished their tea in a strange, companionable silence.

"How do you feel?" Sherlock Holmes asked.

"Tired. I'm getting too old for nightmares and fast action. Being shot at."

"That's nice. Only possibly true."

A distracted smile. Watson was not sure he had actually registered what he himself had said.

"Did something else happen to you last night after the shooting? After you ran from the cab and were gone for so long?"

"Why ever would you think that?" the frown between his eyes smoothed out. "Go to sleep."

"There was a smudge of blood by your eye…on the bruise. I hadn't noticed it before." He paused and watched that observation shrugged away. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Oh, you know. Shower, for a start. I feel filthy. Do what other people do at night? Sleep? Wait for morning?"

"Yeah. Good idea. I'm shattered too. Sleepy. 'Night, Sherlock. Thanks for the tea."

"My pleasure. Goodnight, John."

And the last thing he remembered before falling into a deep sleep was the sound of the water running in the bathroom. So ordinary a sound, after so strange a night….

o0o0o

Sherlock Holmes hesitated, stopped, and stood very still at the end of his bed. And for the briefest of moments, illuminated by early morning light filtered through the curtains, he watched John Watson as he slept.

Lying very still on his back, one arm curved protectively over his head, his face swept smooth and soft in the deepest of sleeps, the doctor was motionless and silent but for slow sonorous breathing. But no nightmares in that sleep any more; only the nightmares he would have when he awoke.

After his shower and then a shave, Sherlock Holmes had moved like a wraith around his bedroom despite his sleeping friend, gathering clothes and getting dressed, picking up a packed bag and dropping it in the hall before being drawn back to the bedroom in a moment of what he irritably recognised as human weakness.

A moment of weakness. He recognised it, fought it for a second, then allowed it past his defences. There was no-one to see and care, and no-one to know or judge.

Uncharacteristically, he submitted to that impulse, and equally uncharacteristically he reached out and pulled the duvet up to more closely cover the sleeping man lying in his bed. Still hesitated, and was, in that brief moment, reluctant to leave and step back into the world.

"I'm sorry, John. I know you can't hear me, and I know you'll hate me when you wake. But I had to drug you to make sure I leave you behind now. Perhaps I'll even live long enough to explain it to you one day."

He left the room and did not hesitate this time or look back.

o0o0o

A random black cab this time, which sped him towards Whitehall. A smooth swift ride before rush hour, Sherlock Holmes as still and as impassive as a statue. But his mind was racing. The rocket firing on all cylinders again, straining to break free from the launch pad.

He resisted the temptation to touch the little stab mark in the centre of the bruise on his temple, to draw attention to it. Even though John Watson had noticed…a little mark that had determined him on a course of action.

The lack of action, the need to confront the man who hurt and threatened was overwhelming. Playground level cat and mouse games were for other people, not Sherlock Holmes. And the childish taunting by Harry Baldwin and his pretentious assumption of the superior, romantic identity of Enrico Baldissi was making him angry and compromising his objectivity. He knew this, and it infuriated him.

He had raced from Davy Gallagher's cab with no plan in mind but to just chase and capture and neutralise Baldissi - to just get him! Get the acolytes who were being corrupted by the evil charm of the man, to stop all this madness before it went any further.

He had had a bad feeling about Baldissi all day - ever since the confrontation in the yard after church - and had realised that the other man's vanity and youth made him both a dangerous and an implacable enemy.

Too charmed by Charles Augustus Magnussen, too enamoured by the power he had presented and exercised, too much under the spell of childish family ambition, too bent on revenge and the twisted expression of it.

As if simply killing or tormenting Sherlock Holmes himself was too easy, too straightforward. But making those close to Sherlock Holmes suffer and be damaged was more appropriate and convoluted a revenge. The thought that this man had been one of the four who had raped him at Appledore was a complication.

It gave Baldissi a feeling of power, of superiority and entitlement. As if he knew more about the consulting detective than anyone else. And that that assumption of knowledge gave him a right to destroy and demean. And Sherlock tried to resist the thought that if that assault had not happened already, it would be both bait and bargaining tool. Or perhaps could still be both. If he was clever…..

So he had run off alone into the night, ignoring the call of Davy Gallagher. Following the man who had thrown the stinger. Who was running alongside the man who carried the airgun. An airgun! Ridiculous!

More teasing, more bullying. An airgun would wound, not kill. The shot had been taken high, to pass above the heads of the passengers in the taxi. And the stinger itself had been a melodramatic affectation, mere showing off: when the taxi would have come to a halt at 221B with a hundred yards of the spot regardless.

And the thought also haunted his mind that to do that Baldissi clearly knew about Marie Dixon-Carr's attempt to shoot him all those months before: to shoot him on his own doorstep, but had hit Fredrik Sondersun instead.

This emerging pattern of spiteful victimisation - biting, scratching letters into skin, taunting with deadly situations - was childish and as annoying as it could have been damaging. And all of the situations where death could - should - have been followed through after the initial attack.

So the words of the graffiti on the sitting room wall still burned in his head - _2 easy 2 kill u 1st -_ and Baldissi's actions were proving out that declaration. It was not reassuring.

So he ran with angry determination into the darkness. Followed the running men around a corner, Browning in hand. Only too aware this chase might be a trap, but with no alternative. And was brought to a skidding halt.

Standing before him in the centre of the short cul de sac stood Enrico Baldissi. Harry Baldwin was not in evidence. Just Baldissi, with a broad smile on his face, standing full square in his sharp blue Italian suit and unbelted trench coat, arms crossed. Posing, confident, assured.

"Come into my parlour, said the criminal genius to the idiot," he drawled.

As he came to a halt Sherlock Holmes bit back his anger and brought the Browning up quickly to solve the problem and to fire. But in his peripheral vision on his right side there was a flash of metal, a blur of movement, a figure stepping from the hiding place of a doorway.

The man who had fired the air rifle; who was now in process of a more physical attack. With no time to turn or run Sherlock Holmes acted on instinct, dropping the Browning to free both hands so he could tackle the immediate danger coming at him, so he could grab the barrel of the airgun.

Nineteen inch long turned barrel, he registered as he took hold. A Remington Express XP with a ten shot magazine, heavy recoil pad and two stage trigger….so at least the gun should not go off accidentally as they grappled over it.

That recognition meant that instead of pulling the gun towards him and twisting it outwards and up for safety as would normally be expected, he instead grasped and twisted and thrust the gun up and backwards, so the heavy rubber reinforced plastic stock slammed up into the chin and throat of the boy carrying it.

Who choked and recoiled from the unexpected blow, then fell forwards as the impact cut off his airway and crumpled him. Sherlock Holmes made sure of unconsciousness and impending headache by following up with an old fashioned southpaw smash to the jaw. The boy dropped straight down as Sherlock ducked and twisted away from a new attack - coming from his left side now, as the other man came at him, the man he recognised as the one who had hefted and thrown the stinger.

Another mere boy, coming out of the opposite doorway at him with a roar of anger in response to that textbook victory. Brave rather than able, fighting with blind anger and clutching hands. This was an easier adversary, all flailing arms and impulsive action, and Sherlock caught him with one hand at his throat, weakened him with a sleeper hold to the neck and stopped him completely and put him out with a jab to the throat in a combination of swift moves that appeared to be one single effortless floating action.

Stooping low as part of the same curling movement, to sweep up the airgun with one hand and the Browning with the other, he braked and froze in mid action as something cool and hard stabbed into his brow.

Something that came to rest on the bruise on his right temple, something long and sharp that whispered deliberately up across his cheek and then upwards to rest in the middle of the purple bruise on the temple. A slight pressure and the heat in the skin of a little pain. The feel and smell of the tiniest bubble of blood.

There was a laugh, and Sherlock Holmes registered that, with too little movement or flourish to catch his attention and warn him, the stiletto must have been concealed in a sprung sheath strapped to the inside of Enrico Baldissi's forearm; the knife ready to use, already in hand, concealed by the crossed arms even before he had entered the cul de sac.

"You are a rank amateur," Sherlock Holmes declared haughtily as he stopped stock still at the touch of that blade, still crouching low, but looking up. "You use your kid cousins for protection when neither can fight their way out of a paper bag . And if you do stab me now, the blade will just bounce off the bone. The skull is far too hard at that point to accept such a short blow."

"You think you know everything, don't you?" Baldissi's face bent low and very close to that of Sherlock Holmes. " Poncey posh boy."

"Other people have also made that mistake in judging me."

"No me, posh boy. I know you. I saw you kill Magnussen. And I know the very sex of you. More than most people then, eh? More than even your lap dog."

Without stepping closer, Baldissi insinuated his body forward, pressing his torso against the older man's shoulder and face.

" I don't have a lap dog."

"I mean your little doctor pal, always trotting at your heels, soothing you with his magic pills. And soothing you with something more, for all I know."

He was toying with the stiletto, rolling the tip within the little cut he had made; but also toying with Sherlock Holmes' mind with his knowledge and his inference, teasing the heat of anger and skin he had created into damage.

There was a strange shine in his eyes, and the sweat of excitement on his top lip. Sherlock had too close a view and was being distracted by feeling at the tip of the stiletto, which was something just less than active pain. But he refused to show this discomfort, and how repulsed he was by this naked taunt, and his unexpected impulse for a protective reaction he had to contain in order to survive.

"Does he know I've had you, posh boy? Would he be jealous?"

"As if either would matter," Sherlock scoffed quietly. Saw the eyes widen then, in either fear or stimulation. "I will kill you, Harry," he promised. "If it is the only way to stop you, I will kill you."

"You won't kill me, Sherlock Holmes. Because I am going to kill you first."

Sherlock looked him in the face without fear or compromise. Up into brown eyes, very dark. Not unlike those of Moriarty, he realised: all brilliance and glitter and with nothing humane or human in their depths.

He turned his head then. Slowly and very deliberately to expose the long and vulnerable column of his throat. In a gesture of challenge not submission.

"So do it now." His voice rang with confidence and command, despite his submissive position.

Baldissi took a half step back, and the stiletto fell away from Sherlock Holmes' temple at last. The boy's eyes narrowed. Objective indifference to his threats was not the response he was used to nor what he wanted

"Good try, posh boy. But no chance. Don't do that high and mighty command thing at me. You haven't suffered half enough yet. And nor have your little chums." He took a deep breath to steady his voice and his hands.

"Chums!" Sherlock Holmes repeated with disdain.

"You killed a great man, you bastard. A man who was unarmed and unprepared…."

"Just like all the people he destroyed, then." There was nothing but arrogant assurance in his voice. But he watched the boy very carefully.

And for a moment the memory of Charles Augustus Magnussen's very last victim, Jack Smallwood, lying dead on his bathroom floor after committing suicide rather than facing victimisation in illness, swamped his mind. He blinked it fiercely away.

"How dare you say that? He was a businessman, that's all. And a bloody good one."

"Blackmailer. Extortionist. Manipulator. Puppeteer of the powerful and hammer of the innocent."

"He was fascinated by you. He loved you"

"Fascinated only because I was not amenable to being controlled. That's not love."

"How would you know?"

"How indeed."

Enrico Baldissi took a step forward again.

"You don't fool me, Sherlock Holmes. You are scared witless."

"By you? I don't think so."

"You'll learn. I've told you - I've promised everyone - I am going to bring you down. I am going to have you. And only then, when I have abused the very core of you, am I going to kill you."

There was a brief moment when the air between them hung with stillness and threat. But Sherlock Holmes still gave a brief, unamused laugh.

"Well, that is terribly good to know, Harry. But I am going to stand up now. My knees are hurting. Unless there is something else you want me to do for you while I am down here?"

He filled his voice with innuendo and disdain, reached his hands forward, eyes hard and fixed, and the challenge and the inference were obvious. Enrico Baldissi may have been full of threats and bluster, but Harry Baldwin went bright red and make a slashing defensive move with the stiletto.

From kneeling to springing suddenly to his feet in a low crouch, Sherlock Holmes was poised and ready to fight. Head up, eyes burning, hands raised in position to strike. And there was a moment when fate hung in the air. Until something - someone - unexpected arrived at the party and broke the tension.

"Stop toying with the boy, Sherlock Holmes. And as for you, _ragazzo idiota -_ idiot boy - put that honourable weapon down until you know how to use it. Your _bisnonno_ would be ashamed of you."

A tall broad shouldered man with black hair and the rugged virility of late middle age walked purposefully into the cul de sac. Authority emanated from him along with a bullish natural poise, He had one hand nonchalantly in a suit trouser pocket, holding back the soft wool of his blue Crombie overcoat, and in the other hand a chunky semi automatic pistol of serious intent with a Picatinny rail below the barrel.

Enrico Baldissi's eyes widened in surprise. Sherlock Holmes' narrowed in professional assessment.

"The late great Raymond Chandler said that when you have an irresolvable situation before you, it is time to introduce a man with a gun. Well, I have been following this idiot boy in his fumblings all day, and now I feel is the right time to present myself as that man with this gun. Because the only resolution you two are going to reach between you tonight will be unpleasant."

He talked with a heavy Italian accent and walked slowly, with arrogant command and something like amusement in his voice. But the hand holding the gun was not relaxed, and his focus was not casual.

"You - _boy_ \- " and the single word was loaded with disdain, "are at risk of being killed by this one," He nodded in the direction of Sherlock Holmes.. "You underestimate him. And I wonder how you do that?. Unless you are totally stupid. Or too blindly led with the idea of taking him down?"

He stepped forward and gently and easily took the stiletto from Enrico Baldissi's nerveless fingers, tucking it nonchalantly into his own waistband. "And you -" he turned to Sherlock Holmes, gestured him to get to his feet and to pick up both guns.

When he did so without demur the newcomer took the airgun from him and slung it disdainfully over a wall, where it clattered down into unreachable silence in someone's back yard. He then emptied the magazine of the Browning expertly one handed and kicked the bullets down a drain before returning the gun to Sherlock Holmes by handing it to him by the barrel, stock forward.

Not lazy or disregarding, but a professional compliment to hand it back to him that way. The gun etiquette of the professional. Sherlock Holmes's eyes registered that fact with a slow blink of recognition the other man caught. And then he watched the consulting detective focus down on his own high powered gun, the other gun. The only gun now primed and ready to fire.

"You are operating at half speed and allowing this child to toy with you. " His eyes asked questions about motive, judgement, determination, prioritisation. Sherlock Holmes veiled his eyes and concentrated his gaze on the gun. That very distinctive hand gun. The newcomer followed his gaze and his thought process, gave a small smile before turning to Enrico Baldissi.

"What are you playing at?" the stranger asked sharply. He was asking the question of Sherlock Holmes, but it was Baldissi who answered.

"None of your business," he said, gathering his wits with a degree of bluster. "Who are you anyway, barging into business that doesn't concern you, old man?"

The man with the authority stepped closer to the young man and lifted his pistol, suddenly driving the barrel up into Enrico Baldissi's right nostril and causing him to recoil with loss of dignity and hurt surprise, tears springing to his eyes in reflex.

"You ask stupid questions that are very insolent in their asking, _ragazzo idiota,"_ he said. "So who do you think I am?"

He drew the stiletto he had confiscated from his waistband with his free hand. Took it by the hilt and stood too close to Enrico Baldissi for Harry Baldwin to be comfortable. Very slowly put the stiletto to the younger man's chest, and with deliberation, looking him in the eyes all the while, slit the cotton thread of one of the shirt buttons.

The silent threat was palpable and Sherlock Holmes watched with keen interest.

"Hmn. You keep this weapon very sharp and clean. Perhaps your _bisnotto_ would not be so ashamed of you after all."

"You are _Mafiosi?_ You knew my great grandpa?" The voice was pathetically childish and eager. As eager as it was scared; Harry Baldwin was back.

"I know, or knew, everyone. Everyone who is family. Would you not expect a _capo_ , or a _capo di tutti capo_ , to know anything less? I know about you, too, boy. So be warned. I am watching you."

"I am on family business, _Papa_." he unconsciously used the honorary title, but the two older men noticed. "This man…."

"Who you have publicly sworn to kill. So why do you hesitate now you have him before you?"

"I do not hesitate." The chin lifted, the face and voice all youthful arrogance. "I choose to delay. To punish first."

"I see." The newcomer nodded and turned a little.

"You play this game with him, Sherlock Holmes?"

"Not by choice."

"I assumed as such."

"Who are you?"

"My name - although it will tell neither of you anything - is Alfredo Catalani."

"You carry a Beretta PX4 Storm. Type C. Sub compact."

"What of it?" He asked sharply. And shot a grin at Sherlock Holmes on Enrico Baldissi's blind side.

"Oh! Nothing much." Sherlock Holmes shrugged to disguise the intense scrutiny he was now subjecting the intruder to.

Late forties to fifty. A lifetime of hyper fitness. Expensively styled blue black hair with not a hint of grey ( _Dye? Good genes?)_ equally dark blue eyes. perma tan, sinewy square hands with calloused fingertips and blunt manicured nails. Muscles showed under the coat, were also well developed around the thighs. Condition honed and fit, a lifetime of physical training unyielding to age.

A soldier at some time, then. Doubtlessly a killer, and who carried a killer's weapon. An adult's firearm, and a serious one, held in that casual almost offhand style that proclaimed an expert. But impossible to tell - with such physical and mental hardness in evidence - which side of the road the man walked. Good or bad. Protector or predator.

"Just thought I would mention it," he remarked, offhandedly.

"A Mastermind of arms identification, are you?"

"And who uses them." Sherlock confirmed.

"Just so. " The older man's grin disappeared as he turned back to Enrico Baldissi.

"You see, boy? This is the sort of knowledge you need to acquire. To play with the adults."

"Bullshit," was the sharp retort. "Nerve and determination and having a weapon in your hand. That's all you need. And I've got all that."

He walked confidently forward into the other man's space. As he did so one of the boys Sherlock Holmes had felled moments ago came staggering to his feet, groaning but aware. No-one helped him, and he seemed not to expect it.

But his semi-conscious presence now gave Enrico Baldissi more confidence.

He reached out and grasped Catalani's wrist; the wrist of the hand that held the stiletto. The gun hand was too close to both bodies to be able to turn and threaten effectively, but the lazy half smile and the lack of surprise on the older man's face showed he felt no sense of engagement or even challenge in the young man's power play.

"As well as juvenile overconfidence," he observed. His hand sprang open as he released the stiletto, which dropped to the ground with a clatter as Baldissi followed it down to catch and regain it.

The Beretta swung easily to make cool contact with Enrico Baldissi's temple. And the boy froze.

"I could shoot you now, child. At this very moment. So that my scorn would be the last thing you ever saw."

"So why don't you?" was the reasonable but slightly higher pitched reply.

"Because I am not a mindless thug nor an assassin. Although I may, at times, be an executioner. So be warned. Are you listening?"

"Take this game of yours elsewhere. Take it off my patch. If you want to challenge and defeat Sherlock Holmes, do it without getting under my feet. Or you will die very soon. Do. You. Understand? Me?"

The quietness of the threat would have silenced any other man.

"To change the field of play will be fun," Baldissi answered after a moment. And he grinned then. "Then I can take Sherlock Holmes down when he isn't looking. Take him - and you - by surprise. When I will pounce."

He laughed. Threw back his head before the threat of the gun and laughed long and loud. The light flashed on the stiletto now back in his hand again, and on the glint in those dark eyes, which make them look manic and unreadable, inhuman.

"You old men," he said scornfully. "You think you know everything. You think you have control. But you will see. I haven't even started yet. Out of my way. Old Man."

He brushed the Beretta out the of harm's way with his empty hand and stepped from the danger area of Catalani's arms reach. In the same fast pivot he touched the knife into Sherlock Holmes' side, and the consulting detective could not stop his involuntary recoil.

"And I do not forget the promise I have made you. Feel the touch of this, Sherlock? Next time you feel the touch of me. Capiscimi, il mio bello?"

Sherlock Holmes wrinkled his nose in what might have been amusement or disgust in response to that taunt: understand me, my handsome one?

From relaxed stance to fast movement, Baldissi put out the heels of both hands, pushed both men hard so they staggered backwards, off balanced. And was gone. Away in a fast lope, laughing. The conscious underling followed him, staggering and still half blind, while the other remained abandoned and unconscious on the cobbles.

"You let him do that! You let him go! Why did you let him go?"

Sherlock Holmes rounded angrily on the man who called himself Alfredo Catalani, Angry, thwarted, disappointed. Disillusioned. His hands had formed unconsciously into fists, and he was having trouble containing that anger.

"Why did you?" The question fired back at him was as cool as it was reasonable.

"I….I….." Words, for once, failed him. And he knew if he spoke at that moment he would never be able to stop the fear and the anger pouring out of him. So he swallowed the words and the reaction down into an appearance of strength and impassivity.

"He would have cut you if I hadn't," Catalani observed.

"So?"

He spun on the spot in a release of his anger and fear and fury, and the older man watched him with feigned disinterest.

"He may have killed you."

"As I just said…."

"Be calm, Sherlock. Give me that cold intellect you are famous for. This boy is mad at worst, unpredictable at best. He might have killed us both, just now. And we have fatter fish to fry, you and I."

"Strange metaphor," he managed. "…but I get your drift."

Alfredo Catalani stepped closer to him. He was taller and exuded calm purpose and sincerity.

"This is not all about you, Sherlock Holmes. This boy has a whole list of people he wants revenge against. To continue the work Charles Augustus Magnussen began.

"If he kills you now, so soon in this game….or even kills me…..who will there be left to beat him, to face him down? Various government lackeys? Magnussen's brothers? Ellie and Ari? Frederik? Piet?"

"Who are you? To know all this? To be part of it? And what are you doing here? Tell me!"

"You don't want to know, and I don't want to tell you. I am _capo._ Ask young Harry Baldwin. That will do for now."

"No," denied Sherlock Holmes with equally calm confidence. "Your gun is a giveaway, isn't it? A very specialist tool, that. And you must know I would know. That the Beretta Storm is the favoured weapon of _Nucleo Operativo Centrale de Sicurezza;_ the Italian Central Security Operations Service. The Italian State Police equivalent of a SWAT team. The elite police arm that operates against terrorism and state security. "

"You are very well read. Up on your homework. Congratulations. I was told you were sharp."

"I have an eidetic memory. Sort of goes with the territory." He shrugged and risked the manic grin.

"So? I may just be an admirer of that unit. I may have nothing to do with it at all. Am I a saint or a sinner, Mr Holmes? What do you think? And does it matter?"

"At that level of national governance, probably not. But I would like to know, Just so I know who and what I am talking to."

"Oh, but that is not important. You are, however."

"Because Baldissi's plot revolves around me." Sherlock Holmes nodded. Calculating. "I am aware. I am not just a target, I am the final target; the fulcrum upon which Baldissi plans his trail of revenge. The logical way to stop all this would be for him to just kill me. Are you up for that, Alfredo Catalani? If that is your real name?"

"I would be. If I thought that was the solution. As it is, I think a better game is for you to keep catching young Baldissi's attention, putting him off his more torturous plan. Jump up and down and catch his attention."

"Yes. Come at him out of left field. That was my assessment He wants the others, but he wants me more. This is why I am amassing knowledge about him, about his plans. I will take him down, Catalani. I have a lead. Just a glimmer….."

"What is that? Tell me?"

Sherlock Holmes grinned and shook his head.

"Too nebulous at the moment. But I am certain Magnussen's brother holds the key The key that will open the back door so I can solve this. "

"Tell me, then. Let me help."

"No. Of course not. You think I am so easily led? I don't know who you are. So I certainly don't trust you. Not you, not your level of knowledge, either. The fact you did not kill either or both of us when you had the chance ten minutes ago is worrying."

"You should know a friend when you see one."

"I don't have friends. That's how I stay alive."

"You think? But you must have someone. Everyone does. Colleagues? Informants? Lovers?"

"Oh, please." Two words of immense scorn and detachment.

He looked down at the Browning in his hand. Turned it over and put it back into his pocket, and the hand followed it down in there to hide. Because he could feel the hand twitching now, the shaking beginning and becoming visible, the shaking deep within the core of himself that was a reaction he recognised only too well, yet was now as rare as it was unstoppable.

"Frightfully nice having a chat like this, but I have to go now," he said. "People will be expecting me…..and I have things to do."

He swung round on his heel and deliberately turned his back.

"Sherlock…"

His name, the intonation of it, made him pause and glance back.

"This whole thing is a mess. I am sorry." Catalani shrugged his shoulders in an alien gesture of helplessness.

"Why should you be sorry? It's not your fault. Or your problem."

"Baldissi should have been caught at Appledore. That is not your fault, either."

"My penance, though. I killed a man. And to have to resort to killing is failure. This situation is a result of my failure. So I must now do whatever is needed to put things right and to finish the job. May be death. Certainly won't be glory."

"How are you so…judgemental of yourself?"

"Years of long practise. I have not earned the right to have or to express emotion. Nor is that my function. So I am beholden to make this situation better than it is. Stop more reputations being slashed, more blood spilt."

"As easy as that?"

"Yes. Is that a problem for you?"

"Not me."

"Then tell me what you are doing in this. And why."

"I think there is an English phrase? About herding cats."

" Nonsense." He huffed impatiently. "A clue at least?"

The Italian looked levelly at him.

"Torba," he said.

"What?"

"Torba."

"I thought that was what you said."

"That's all I can tell you, and more than I should. Work it out. You are good at puzzles, aren't you?"

He turned and walked away, back the way he had come and down the cul de sac. Turned left at the end and disappeared around the buildings and onto Baker Street.

Sherlock Holmes dropped his shoulders and released a long shuddering breath. He could taste bile in his throat. Looked at the hands he lifted up to his face. They were still shaking. Faster and more convulsively than a moment ago. He wiped the blood from his temple with a coat cuff, unheeding.

He looked at the unconscious teenager at his feet. Checked the steady pulse at the neck, noted the slight wriggle of movement under his hand; the boy was returning to the surface again without help.

He strode away before the boy woke and saw him. Before the shaking rendered him helpless. Thought of heading elsewhere for sanctuary to hide and to recover, but his brain could only envisage taking him home to 221B. So that was where he went. In the hope no-one else was there and he could withdraw from the world, be on his own until the paroxysm passed.

o0o0o

Now, ten hours on, he sat back in a taxi.

Mycroft had not arrived to question and probe. Lestrade was busy elsewhere. John Watson was in bed in a drugged sleep that would keep him contained until at least lunchtime. So he had no encumbrances trying to be helpful and to drag him backwards.

No-one was following him. Not Catalani, not Baldissi. He had directed the unknown, anonymous driver on a circuitous route so he was able to check that very thing. An extra note added to the fare had made the driver tolerant and patient. And on the second circuit of a square of streets he leapt out at the corner of Northumberland Road, and instructed the cabbie to keep circling the block until he reappeared.

With the long suffering look of the wise man humouring the fool, and with an eye on the easy money ticking up on the clock, the driver agreed, and Sherlock slide into a tiny gated alley and into the back yard of an Italian restaurant, banging on the service door with a particular rhythm.

"What happened to you last night?" was the urgent greeting. And Sherlock patted the arm holding the door reassuringly.

"Nothing much. I need information."

Angelo Grimaldi stood back and pulled him inside.

"So ask."

He had two large trays on the little table in front of him, filling cruets. The restaurant had not yet opened, and there was just the two of them in the building. Angelo Grimaldi went back to his task, waiting peaceably as Sherlock Holmes stood silently watching him.

"Not like you to be short of words."

"Do you know any Italians in Denmark?"

"Why?"

"Or any Mafia bosses in England?"

"These are not simple questions. And I've said to you before: I am not going to be the one responsible for you getting killed."

"Knowledge helps keep me alive."

The voice was low, almost a feral growl. The eyes contained the light of a hunter in them. Or a killer. Angelo took a long look to make sure he was not mistaken. Then he nodded.

"So ask," he repeated. "What you really want to know.

"What did Mario tell you about Baldissi he would not tell me last night?"

"My friend….." Angelo stuttered. He stuttered rarely, but was taken off guard, shook his head in denial of that surprise. He should have known Sherlock Holmes could see and read what others could not.

"You were so very ill last night. And do not deny that," he added hurriedly, as his friend opened his mouth to protest.." We could all see…..how much you were in pain. How something had hurt you. My brother…he only wants to protect you, vecchio amico."

"Only knowledge and being alone protect me, Angelo. You know that. Remind your brothers."

"Mario is a cautious man, Sherlock. There are things he will not say in a public room. And in front of strangers. Even in front of strangers you yourself trust."

"John Watson and Pedder Magnussen. They are not strangers."

"Strangers to Mario."

Angela Grimaldi reached towards a hand in a gesture of reassurance and apology, but watched the hand disappear into a coat picket. Sighed.

"OK then. Enrico Baldissi - the real Enrico Baldissi - came to England before the rest of his family. He had first migrated to New York before that, a member of La Mano Nera - the Black Hand."

"I thought that died out in the Twenties?"

"A convenient fable. But no - it still works, mainly amongst the Mafia and the Italian immigrant communities. Threats of murder blackmail, extortion. Baldissi was famous for it. And his ability with a chiv; to mark and to maim. He gained a reputation in America, so New York became too hot or him. So he joined his family in England, and then became no less famous within the underworld here.

"He was never caught, and he remains legend. Died peacefully in his bed, still maintaining his cover as nothing more than the owner of a fish and chip shop, when young Harry was ten. Filled the boy's head with folklore and legend, mainly about himself, and taught him how to use his very own stiletto.

"One of the reasons Harry got his own way for so long as a boy was on the back of his great grandfather's reputation. He is very alike, Mario was told. Not just in looks but in personality. And an ability to handle that knife. People have always been scared of him. Creating a most particular loyalty."

"Mario should have told me this yesterday."

"Perhaps."

"I must stop him, Angelo. He is targeting too many people.,"

"The word on the street is that he is targeting you."

"Yes."

"Have a care, Sherlock. Do not be fooled by his youth."

"Why should I be? No-one was ever fooled by my youth. And I did bad things, lethal things, when I was young."

"Not without good cause. Not without the desire to save and preserve life. Harry is the opposite of you."

Sherlock Holmes took two steps backwards as if he had been struck.

"You know nothing of that part of me. That time of my life."

"I know enough. About you. The heart of you. Remember you were still very young when you first came to my door…."

"If John Watson comes to you. Asks about me,…." he began. As if the two things were unrelated. But Angelo Grimaldi knew they were not.

"I like John. I remember your first visit here together - when I thought he was your date. But I still know nothing. I never do. Whoever asks. Even your scary brother. You do not have to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Sherlock."

"If any of you hear any whispers about Harry Baldwin, however insignificant it may seem…you will tell me? Straight away?"

"Of course."

"Have you ever heard of Alfredo Catalani?"

"No."

"Are you sure? He is supposed to be a local _capo._ A _capo di tutti capo,_ even."

"Not here," Angelo denied. "Not in London. I would know. Trust me."

"But he….." Sherlock stopped talking suddenly.

"I am sorry, my friend. I will ask around. But that is not a family name I know. There was a composer called Alfredo Catalani. Died young of consumption. But not any name of any man I know in London."

"Anywhere else in the UK? His English sounds natural; not taught."

"I will ask. Or perhaps the police computer would help you? You need to find this man?"

"No. I need to know him."

"Not easy. Good man or bad man?"

"Can't tell. And I don't like not being able to tell."

"It does not always make a difference. To a man's danger. To himself and others."

"That is what worries me."

"You look for any more Italians? Or Mafia connected Sicilians, maybe?" Sherlock Holmes spun away from the table, distracted and agitated, and paced the floor.

"Sicilian…Italian….composer….classical music….Catalani. Catalani. Is that a clue? A clue to the puzzle? Who…?"

He stopped moving.

"Catalini wrote La Wally, didn't he? Short for Walburga. Independent minded English saint with two brothers…." he clenched his hands into his hair for a moment. Paced. Swirled back to face Angelo.

"Longshot. Do you know anyone called De Bono?"

"No. But…"Angelo's hands stilled as he thought. "When you first asked about the Baldissi family I told you how they had worked with a well known family of Italian gangsters called Messina. You remember? "

"Of course."

"This de Bono you ask about. Where is he from? Sicily?"

"No. Malta. "

Angelo Grimaldi nodded his head thoughtfully.

"The Messina clan had their Sicilian Mafia roots to be sure. But their real name was de Bono. And they came from Malta. Did you know that? Or is this a coincidence?"

"There is no such thing as coincidence, Angelo. The universe is rarely so lazy. And this is far too large and unusual a coincidence to be true."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know. Not yet." He thought a moment. Wiped his face with his hands.

"Torba," he said suddenly.

"Torba?" Angelo Grimali repeated blankly. "You are digging?"

"Yes. Because it is a clue."

"To what?"

"I don't know. It means soil, doesn't it? "

He stood beside Angelo Grimaldi again, body taut with suppressed energy, brain busy, eyes blind.

Her took out his mobile phone, clicked a speed dial number.

"It's me. Do you have a trace on? Any news?"

Mycroft Holmes sighed.

"Do you think I have nothing to do but humour you, little brother?"

"You owe me."

The voice was a snarl, and Mycroft Holmes swallowed the retort that came to his lips automatically. Because he knew his brother was right.

"Now we have a real name for Enrico Baldissi, we have details. School reports, home address, criminal record. Petty stuff, juvenile record of shop lifting, bullying extortion and so forth. Nothing huge.

"He has not been seen at the parental home for months. Nothing on the parents, epitome of respectability. And before you ask - yes, we have looked. He appears to have been living at Appledore for some time. Has sucked up several impressionable young cousins as underlings. "I can email the details to you."

"Yes, immediately. Do you know anyone called Alfredo Catalani?"

"Italian composer. Operas. La Wally and Lorely mainly."

"One based on a German tale, the other on a legend."

"Yes. The girl who fall in love and throws herself in a river. Lures men to their death. You know this, Sherlock."

"Yes. I…..Yes. Thank you."

"You sound as if you are thinking."

"Thinking. Yes."

"Nothing unusual there, then. But another thing. Are you listening to me? Harry Baldwin was on the passenger list for the morning flight to Denmark from Heathrow this morning. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No. Yes. I mean…I don't know. Yes. " The brain was racing, the voice was stronger now. "Yes, actually. I mean yes."

"Clear and concise thought process, as always."

The irony was back.

"I must…..act. Yes. I am good at puzzles. Everyone says so."

"Tell me."

"Not yet. Not until I am sure. Just…"

"What?"

"Keep a watching eye. If Elizabeth asks, keep her appraised. If John Watson asks….." he hesitated. "Don't tell him anything. Not anything about anything. Do you understand me?"

"Not a word," his brother declared airily; but did not clarify to what he was referring.. "Do I ever blurt things out?"

"You might. If you think John Watson should know things about me I…don't want him to."

There was a brief pause.

"He just wants to know who you are, Sherlock. As do we all."

Sherlock Holmes did not answer, but closed the call with a bad tempered click. Looked at Angelo Grimaldi with dark eyes blank with concentration.

"It's not soil," Angelo said unexpectedly. "It's that other stuff - torba. You know, the stuff you put in plant pots. Peat."

The taut concentration of Sherlock Holmes transformed into a huge grin.

"Did I say something?"

"More than you think!"

He grabbed the head of the restaurateur and plonked an uncharacteristic, exuberant kiss on the other man's forehead, whirled away, all sudden lifeforce of fire and light.

"What's happened? What are you going to do? Where are you going?"

" I have to see a man about a man. And a girl about a violin," he said - by which time he was halfway out of the door.

"Buona fortuna!" Angelo called. Good luck!

But he was talking to empty air.

For the door had slammed shut. And all that could be heard was running footsteps speeding down the alley.

Angelo Grimaldi shrugged, and frowned. Shook his head and turned back to the cruets.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Authors notes:**

Picatinny rail: a rod that is positioned beneath a gun barrel to carry specialist attachments such as night sights and suppressors.

Crombie: classic English overcoat styled from the very first men's topcoats and overcoats. Retro styled to fit, with fly front and distinctive red silk lining and velvet collar.

Uncle Tom Cobley: leader of a horde of people, from the folksong Widdecombe Fair.

Means, derisorily in this context, just about everyone.

Marie Dixon Carr: who attempted to assasinate Sherlock Holmes on his doorstep in the prequel to this story, Things We Lost In The Flames.

Capo/capo di tutti capo: Translates as boss/boss of all bosses. Titles for Mafia leaders of a gang or family.

La Mano Nera: The Sicilian version of the Black Hand Gang, notorious for murder and extortion. Similarly named gangs operate around the world.

Chiv: Pronounched shiv; name of a stabbing knife, or the act of skilled knife useage.


	8. Chapter 8

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 8

' _To do a great right, do a little wrong'_

 _(Bassanio, The Merchant of Venice; Shakespeare)_

With a rare protesting squawk of vintage brass hinges, the heavy mahogany door slammed back into the ornate Pugin wallpaper of the wall behind it, and one very irate doctor strode into Mycroft Holmes' normally tranquil Whitehall office.

Sherlock Holmes' older brother barely bothered to lift his eyes to his visitor, and certainly did not change his expression of urbane disinterest despite the interruption. A brief nod to his assistant - hot on John Watson's heels, but unable to stop him - permitted the intrusion to continue, and she turned away obediently and closed the door silently behind her.

"Good morning, John. What a pleasant surprise." He put down the folder he had been examining and rested his hands on the green leather surface of the desk between them. "Is there something I can do for you?"

The quiet greeting only served to anger the doctor even more.

"Of course there is. You know there is. Why that performance of yours last night? And where the hell is Sherlock?"

"Calm down. Sit down. And one question at a time, if you don't mind."

He waited until John Watson swallowed his impatience and appeared calmer, and was settled in the leather armchair opposite.

"So. Please now proceed. What were you going to ask?"

"Dunno. What were you going to tell?"

A thin smile. A button on the desk discreetly pressed.

"Sherlock is busy at the moment. Out and about. Laying a trail, you might say."

"For who? For why?"

"For Harry Baldwin - Enrico Baldissi, if you prefer. So he can catch him. Obviously."

"There is nothing obvious about this. And why aren't you helping him?"

"I am helping him. As much as I can. It was impossible to locate the missing primary target under an assumed name. With his real name revealed we made progress. This morning I provided intelligence on the location of his associates so Sherlock can now act."

That snippet passed over John Watson's head; he was concentrating on something more immediate.

"I mean…why aren't you doing this yourself? Getting Baldissi through official channels instead of leaving it to him? Again."

Mycroft Holmes sighed and spoke very slowly for the benefit of the simpleton.

"Because Sherlock is Baldissi's prime target. Because Sherlock killed Magnusson. If anyone else wades in, there is a strong risk Baldissi will disappear even further out of sight - he is clearly very slippery. But he will still begin his revenge killing, and if we go after him all guns blazing, we have no idea how, or against whom, he may step up his action.

"So Sherlock is taking the lead, to limit damage by putting Baldissi's focus entirely upon himself."

"Prat."

"Just so. But it should work. This foe is hardly sophisticated. Unlike his late employer."

"Where is Sherlock now?"

"Oh….out and about. Acting on intelligence. I just told you that."

"OK. So why did he drug me last night?"

"Do I really need to explain? To keep you out of harm's way while he puts his head above the parapet to get it shot at."

John Watson slammed a fist into a chair arm.

"That is so stupid….."

"Yes. But you may recall my brother vowed to keep you and your wife safe. To always be there for you. He is doing that."

The acid tone of Mycroft Holmes's voice was not new, but now stung John Watson to self defence.

"I never asked him to do that. I don't want him to do that. He has already done too much for us."

"I so agree. But my brother takes his responsibilities very seriously. And never forgets them."

"So is that what the melt down last night was about? Old commitments? Something he thinks he failed at?"

"Very astute, Doctor Watson."

The change of subject caught Mycroft Holmes off guard, and Watson saw him look down and away; not flustered, but certainly a little disconcerted. Pressed the small advantage.

"So tell me. Dammit, Mycroft! You challenge me to find who Sherlock really is - and why he is - and then neither you nor anyone else will tell me anything!"

"Who is anyone else?" The query was delicate rather than probing.

"Bradshaw. Gallagher. You. Even your parents."

"You have seen them again? Despite Christmas?"

"Yes. Trying to do what you asked, Mycroft, I really am. And even I can see that I have to." He sucked in a deep steadying breath.

"Your mother says you are not ordinary sons of ordinary parents. Think I had worked that out for myself! But she also said Sherlock is a construct. What does that mean? That the man I know is a part William has played for twenty years or more? With all of you agreeing to him doing that? Actually conspiring with him?"

John Watson leaned forward now, driven; as angry as the time he had faced Mycroft down at the Diogenes Club, when the adversary had been Moriarty, and not the Holmes brothers themselves

"How does that work, Mycroft? And why? Are you all frightened of him? Or is he frightened of you? And why do all of you - all the people meant to be closest to him - actually let that happen?"

"No-one is frightened, John. Please do not jump to that conclusion. Think of it as our…." he paused, trying to find the right words. Which to John Watson now seemed a major admission in itself. "Sense of obligation, rather. Our obligation to him. "

"No. Still don't get it."

"I'm sorry, but there are things I simply cannot….."

At the moment a man entered the office with a peremptory knock as he came through the door.

A tall, over slim and permanently stooped man, close to retirement age, dressed identically to Mycroft in dark pinstriped suit, and carrying a thick folder of paperwork, made a quiet, self effacing entrance.

"Oh, I am so sorry. I did not realise you had a visitor…." the newcomer said softly and with exquisite etiquette. "Do forgive my intrusion. But this is the material you requested urgently, Mycroft…." he paced with silent elegance to Mycroft's side of the desk and presented the file precisely onto the centre of the desk. "….and I felt I should bring it to you immediately."

"That is quite all right, thank you," Mycroft replied distantly, mind elsewhere. "But where are my manners? Do let me introduce you."

He pulled himself back from his thoughts. His second thoughts. But he had made his decision and was committed now.

 _I will always be there for you…._

 _We have an agreement, my brother and I…_

 _Listen to me…I was there for you before. I'll be there for you again…._

Sherlock had appeared in his office so early that morning it was before he had even taken off his coat, a quiet wraith appearing at his side rather than an avenging angel storming forward.

"Delightful to see you, little brother, but what are you doing here? So early in the morning?"

"Things to do. Things to tell you. Plans."

He was drifting around the mahogany desk in vague circles, eyes everywhere, but vision turned inwards. Silent. Mycroft hung up his coat, placed his briefcase inside the footwell of the desk, sat down with composure.

"For goodness sake, stop spinning like a top. If you are here to talk - then talk. I haven't got all day."

"Yes. Words. Sorry."

His younger brother came to a halt beside the bay window. Hand to his head, tugging his hair in that boyish bad habit of thoughtfulness.

Mycroft read the concentration aid, the focus, the deep commitment. Held down any reaction. Trying not to remember the black thing of death and shame so vividly on the floor before him the previous night.

"The intelligence you provided means I can act now. Thank you for that. Things to do today, anthills to prod. Going on the offensive. Don't track me. Will be away for a bit." He shot Mycroft a sudden hard look, brooking no argument.

"What I do next should spur young Harry to action. If so this will be over in days. Don't help me - I don't need it. Don't attempt to interfere."

"Why do you assume I would?"

"Because you do that. It is annoying. And you will not like what I intend to do to finish this business." He paced round the desk, came close into his brother's personal space with awareness, a suggestion of purpose and of threat. "I need to be on my own to achieve it. Throughout all this Magnussen business you have never told me what I needed to know, yet you have interfered, and interfered badly. So I do not need you as a helpmate. Thank you."

Mycroft accepted and then parried the blow.

"And does that also apply to John Watson? Because after -hmn - helping you last night, he will want to continue to help you."

"You brought John Watson into this against my wishes. Set him under threat of banishment to treat me as some sort of project. I understand your thinking, but do not approve. I have put Mary Morstan into a place of safety until this is over. I prefer John to be safely out of the way also.

"So I left him at Baker Street in a drugged sleep this morning. When he comes round he will realise what I have done, and he will be angry.

"He will come to you to find me, but you will be the diplomat and fob him off. He is used to that from you. You will not tell him where I am or what I am doing. You will not."

The words he spoke then, the plan he detailed, was brief, faultless in it's logic, disturbing in the possibility of it's consequences. But Mycroft did not waste his breath pointing this out. He merely observed, when Sherlock's briefing finally ended:

"You are refusing my assistance. So why are you here and telling me your plans?"

"To stop you trying to find me and blundering in by your version of good intent and by mistake. As is your wont."

The insult was milder than it could have been, but there was a long silence as the two brothers stared each other down. Eventually the older brother spoke.

"Are you…..all right, brother? After last night?"

A restrained query born of true concern. A concern recognised in a quick blink that turned those strange opal eyes away. A concern shrugged away.

"Why? Don't I sound all right? Sane? Objective? Functional?" He hissed out the final word: "Myself?"

"Yes you do. And sometimes that is when I fear you, and fear for you, the most."

"Bollocks," Sherlock responded quietly and firmly. And with a curt nod he was gone.

Mycroft Holmes remembered that conversation. And now offered a tight polite smile in the direction of John Watson, there in front of him in anger and undisguised puzzlement just as his brother had predicted.

He took a deep breath. He had thought about it, and was committed now. To decision and betrayal. Determined to know better than his brother about what was best for him; as always.

So he stood and introduced two strangers to each other. Two strangers he had brought together.

"John - this is Sir Robert Drummond Howe, a close colleague. Robert, this is Doctor John Watson, late of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. Sherlock's friend and colleague and former flatmate."

John Watson stood, smiled briefly, offered a hand, military bearing very strong.

"Really?" The other man's interest picked up, and he looked more closely at John Watson. "Friend as well as colleague? You must be quite exceptional, Doctor Watson."

The diplomat smiled, and ducked his head, flicked his hand forward into the briefest touch of a handshake across the desk, but he barely stopped moving throughout, and turned to leave. Avoiding further conversation, John Watson observed. Reflected that Mycroft Holmes had never introduced him to a colleague before. And wondered why he had done so now. Had even engineered the meeting…..?

Mycroft was watching both men intently: too intently. John Watson caught that look. He did not have the practise or the brain to play mind games with Sherlock's older brother in the way Sherlock did, but he understood the moves.

Drummond Howe closed the door behind him with a soft click as he left, and John Watson lifted his chin.

"As I was saying before we were interrupted…" A muscle twitched in Mycroft's right cheek that might have passed for a smile,,,, " No-one will tell me anything. But Sherlock himself told me a great deal last night. Even though he did not know he was doing that."

"Indeed?"

"So - stop me if I get anything wrong here - but there was some big event. Abroad. A long time ago, but still bright and sharp, so something major, traumatic. Something that affected you all. Changed your lives." He paused, but Mycroft Holmes neither reacted nor commented. So he pressed on.

"Your father was injured. Hurt badly enough for Sherlock to have thought him dead. And someone did die - someone called Isabel. Family, was she? Or friend? Close to Sherlock, was she? Closer to Robin - whoever he is - than to you, certainly. But traumatic all the same.

"And then something else happened to Sherlock. The thing that has made him loathe himself ever since. Something…" John Watson paused. Mycroft Holmes was as still as a statue, withdrawn from Watson, but also withdrawn from himself. Not blinking, barely breathing. An extreme reaction, even from someone called the Ice Man.

To those who knew what they were seeing.

"Are you going to tell me if I am right? Help me along a bit? Admit I'm on the right track?"

"I don't know everything," Mycroft said, very slowly, voice unrecognisable in pitch, and barely above a whisper. "I wasn't there. "

"What?" John Watson tried not to yelp, to keep the one word calm and non judgmental, but could hear for himself an hysterical edge of disbelief.

"I was at Oxford, you see. At the time. I had the chance - a terrific honour, an unrepeatable experience - to serve a brief internship in Washington. So our parents and Sherlock….together at Christmas, for once…by the time I was alerted and had travelled…..everything had…." He paused, shook his head. "There was nothing I could do."

He looked down and pulled a harsh shallow breath.

"I was too late. To do anything other than clear up the mess."

"What mess?"

No reply, just a slow shake of the head.

"So that's why Sherlock said - last night - that the one time you were needed was the one time you were not there."

"Yes."

Mycroft Holmes was looking blindly down at the file in front of him now, a standard yellow office pencil grasped tight between his hands, the wood at the point of cracking..

"So you have bullied and interfered in his life ever since. Looking after him, as you see it. Trying to make up for that absence? Why there is this god-awful tension and power play between you all the time?"

The older brother looked neutrally up at him but did not speak.

John Watson make an angry noise in his throat and took a crumpled piece of paper from an inner pocket.

"Then at least tell me about this….." he leant forward to put the paper on the desk in clear sight. Watched Mycroft Holmes look down at it and assess the content without expression.

"What is this? And where did you get it?"

"This was pinned to the sitting room wall in Baker Street by Enrico Baldessi when he first threatened Sherlock with revenge. This is undoubtedly Sherlock at the centre of this photo, and with four other men. Sherlock refused to tell me about it, and what it means.

"I know chemsex and rape when I see it; gang rape and humiliation too. He said you have photographs you should show me. That we would both be entertained." The hurt, bitter edge to his voice was untypical and inescapable.

For in his mind he could hear Sherlock's voice: and felt a traitor just asking. But to solve the puzzle that was Sherlock, the puzzle that needed solving….how could he not ask?

 _I do not know how to let you down._

 _I am too damaged to save myself…..I absolve you from any responsibility for me….._

 _The only person I trust….._

"Not something that looks entertaining to me, but that was what he said. So tell me, Mycroft. Show me. Because surely this has to be information I need to know him and help him. To understand."

"Understand? Understand Sherlock?" Mycroft huffed an ironic laugh, despite himself, and he watched John Watson's unwitting angry frown. "You really don't want to know this. To see ….."

"I don't want to. But I need to. To begin to understand…"

For a long moment they stared at each other. But John Watson neither blinked nor looked away. And finally the man opposite him opened a desk drawer, took out a blue folder, and slid it across the desk.

Mycroft Holmes sat and watched the movement in John Watson's face as he pulled out the glossy photographs. Looked, face blank with distaste, at the photographs Mycroft Holmes had discovered in the penthouse home of Charles Augustus Magnussen; the photographs that had burned themselves into his memory. That Watson now, like himself, would never forget seeing.

Mycroft watched the doctor move slowly from one photograph to another. Watched his eyes shock, his jaw work.

"You do, of course, recognise Sherlock," Mycroft commented with peerless objectivity. "The other four men in the photographs - taking it in turns to be behind the camera, are the deceased Charles Augustus Magnussen, the late Eric Carlsson, the Ghanian Simeon Kosi Nzema, and Enrico Baldissi - or Harry Baldwin, if you prefer. Magnusson's inner circle, you might say. Not within his media world. Within his personal life at Appledore."

"These photographs are…disturbing, Mycroft. How did this happen? Was it - I hardly dare ask - consensual?"

"All I know is that Sherlock was drugged. Caught and drugged. He did not have a chance. He will not tell me, nor tell anyone, exactly what happened. The person who knows the most is Molly Hooper. And you know how loyal and how discreet she is.

"As for Sherlock's attitude…." he made a small frustrated twist of his head. "How can I know?

 _Earworms from the past: To try and flick away, unheeded…_

' _Don't be alarmed. It's about sex.'_

' _Sex doesn't alarm me.'_

' _How would you know?'…._

Sigh. Remove facial expression. Press on….

"My brother's sexuality is something he will not - or possibly cannot - discuss with anyone. Least of all me. I am only his brother." He closed his teeth on the hurt and the anger, and tried again.

"He does not engage with that part of himself. You must know that - you have lived with him. And no, I don't mean…." he apologised, shook his head, tried again. "James Moriarty and Irene Adler chose to call him the Virgin.

"If Sherlock is virgin it is a mere technicality. Do you understand what I am saying, John? From what he has done…what has happened to him…in the past…things done to survive…regrettably there is little truly virginal about him. And yet in emotional terms… he retains behaviours one may read as childlike yet autistic

"Sherlock has learnt much in his life without desire to do so. Any sort of desire. Do you understand me, John?"

 _Don't need saving! Rape? What rape?_

 _Caring is not an advantage._

 _Anger and humiliation fuel me. Pain and being alone makes me better….makes me achieve more…leave me alone….._

 _Come out and just fuck me John._

John Watson pushed the memories and the photographs away from him, suddenly chilled in both heart and soul, his face ravaged with disgust.

"I was right. I didn't need to see these."

"Yes you did. You needed to see. To know the depths my brother is prepared to debase himself to win. To protect us all. He was raped by Magnusson and his men, and he loathed it, loathed himself. Not for the first time.

"The act did not stop him, but empowered him. That is what he does."

Mycroft Holmes put his hands firmly down on the desk, pushed himself abruptly to his feet before the doctor had a chance to say more.

"Thank you for coming, John. But that will be all. I have an appointment across the road at Number Ten in a few moments, and I must not be late."

"But…"

"I'm sorry. A matter of priorities, you know. While Sherlock is off playing at Robin Hood. And you, it seems, are playing at being Sherlock. What a wonderful world we live in, Dr Watson."

He looked across at John Watson - unblinking, expression unreadable - for long seconds. But the doctor did not move or speak. Just waited. Until Mycroft asked.

"Why did you come here today, John? To vent some spleen? To bully me? Or to help Sherlock?"

"You know the answer to that, Mycroft. You know."

"Yes. But how committed are you?"

"You know that too. I owe your brother my life. Time upon time. As does my wife. At which point do you think I draw back from repaying that debt?"

"When he tells you? Tells me to stop you from following him? From putting yourself into danger? Most especially into danger on his behalf? As he expressed very forcibly this very morning?"

John Watson stood silently and leaned his hands on the desk.

"That makes me even more determined," he said slowly. "Now, give."

"Sherlock is heading abroad by a rather circuitous route. To look as if he is trying to disappear, yet actually laying a trail of breadcrumbs for Baldissi to follow. If you catch the evening flight direct, you will be there before him. If you are ready to follow him, to mind his back?"

"You don't need to ask. You think he needs me?"

"Yes, I do. And he does. He refuses to need me - you know that. But he needs someone he trusts. What he plans to do over the next few days may well kill him, one way or another. It would be fitting if he has the best help possible."

"A compliment? You are slipping, Mycroft."

"Not at all. An exception can prove the rule. Homer may nod. Cicero stutter. Robin Hood help the rich."

Still standing, the British Government sighed, drew a notepad towards him, wrote several lines quickly.

"Here is a list of addresses he will be heading towards. So you can follow him. Or catch him up. His timings today are here….Be at his side or be his shadow. If you really wish that."

He glanced his eyes away from John Watson finally, and bent to pick up his brief case.

"I will text you details, things I can organise that will smooth your path. Tickets, passes and the like. But call if you need me. For anything. Whatever he might say."

He strode to the office door, looked back with his hand on the door.

"Anthea will see you out. Good luck."

And with the briefest of smiles he was gone. While the doctor sat down again for a few moments to collect his thoughts. About rape and photographs and death and commitment.

Shame and honour and devotion. Plans and plots and protection. He slumped a little to one side and stared at the empty captain's chair Mycroft had vacated. And thought dark and tangled thoughts.

o0o0o

With facts now at his fingertips - photographs, names and addresses, details of the cousins that formed Harry Baldwin's inner circle - Sherlock Holmes could finally begun to act. Finally start to put all the disparate pieces of this new puzzle together.

He had dismissed his taxi and now walked through the city, mind racing, vision clearing. Things to do.

The problem had always been, he knew, was that as far as anyone but himself was concerned, Harry Baldwin had been invisible and mostly unknown. Close to Magnussen. Moving paperwork and people and being places. But out of the public eye.

Although the boy kept his younger relations close to him, he had spent months if not years dodging his elders and betters, staying away from the disapproval of his parents because he was reinventing himself as Enrico Baldissi and creating a new persona from the legend of the old. Inspired by his villainous great grandfather and his own delusions of self importance and a childhood fascination with James Bond and the Man From U.N.C.L.E, with immature dreams and self image. A fascination that was neither scotched nor shocked into reality by his failure to impress Maggie Driscoll and become a part of Magenta Rose.

Superheroes, super villains - it was clear Harry could barely tell the difference between the two. And cared even less. Add that to the power he had been allowed to hold over others since childhood, and his precocious fascination with sex and sexual manipulation, made him damaged, dangerous and potentially lethal.

As the most junior part of Magnusson's close knit personal support team he had learnt, shared, exercised a power of sorts, yet had remained invisible beyond the walls of Appledore. So of all the outsiders and representatives of law and order who had piled into Appledore on Christmas Day, only Sherlock had realised he had been the one manipulator to escape in the confusion after Magnussen's shooting.

And even that had been delayed by being knocked unconscious, his solitary confinement and imprisonment, in days when he had been expecting death or the definition of it, and when no-one had shared with him results of the operation at Appledore he had missed through no fault of his own.

The assumption of the new but old Italian name had also made the escaped man a ghost; Harry Baldwin had a petty juvenile past of sorts, but there were few people left alive who would connect the elderly London fish and chip shop owner who had publicly denied any lethal past - but had been proud of it all the same - and took a special and private delight in creating his eldest great grandson in his own youthful image, a sophisticated young thug on the rise.

In the beginning only Maggie Driscoll had made the connection, and only Maggie Driscoll had known to tell Sherlock Holmes about it. Without Maggie Driscoll's input Harry Baldwin would have been forgotten, and Enrico Baldissi a danger that was even more unknowable and untraceable, a threat that had appeared suddenly and out of thin air.

But Sherlock Holmes had known him. Remembered him. Recognised him from being part of the landing party when the helicopter that brought himself and John Watson to Appledore on that life changing Christmas Day, and also recognised him as part of the group that gang raped him so many months, yet so few moments, before.

And those blackmail photographs had proved that: photographs Magnussen had taken as a weapon against Sherlock Holmes, that Mycroft had found and would now forever hold against him, photographs his brother would never publicly reveal but never privately destroy either. And whether that was to store them away as proof of four men's guilt, or of one man's shame, was immaterial. To Mycroft, anyway.

Mycroft, who always needed to hold the upper hand. Mycroft, who always plotted three steps forward beyond any one else's sight or reach. Mycroft. Who needed to know the worst, more than the best, of his younger brother. And made neither allowances nor excuses for the brighter burning energy that was close yet not his own.

Sherlock blocked out any feelings on this matter. What he felt would have - should have - no bearing upon how he acted or reacted, made decisions. How he reacted emotionally or instinctively had no relevance. It never had. Never could. Objectivity was all, as it always had been.

What affected and annoyed Mycroft most was the fact Harry Baldwin, by denying his real existence and presenting himself as the unknown Enrico Baldissi, had made himself invisible and impossible to locate. Even to Mycroft and his underlings.

Now, even with three days knowledge of the identity of the man who was repeating and strengthening the threats of Charles Augustus Magnussen, it was still proving beyond the police and intelligence agencies to answer the obvious: where did Enrico Baldissi run to, and where did he hide, after he escaped from Appledore?

Who had provided refuge and resources? There had been ten days between Magnussen's death and the reveal of Enrico Baldissi as Harry Baldwin - yet how had Baldissi remained hidden and invisible, strong enough and secure enough in his hiding place to make his own plans for revenge, for death and destruction? To continue Magnussen's trail of shame and scandal? And to turn on Sherlock Holmes and all the other people Magnussen had held in his sights while barely breaking stride? How? How?

This was the problem that worried Sherlock Holmes the most.

He knew, without false modesty, he was at least the equal of Enrico Baldissi; but that was not the issue. The issue was to know who was hiding and supporting and funding the mad young man and his determination to continue Magnussen's mayhem.

Baldissi, for all his youth and flaws, had drive and determination. Headstrong and hungry for power. Yet behind all this testerone driven, taunting pathway to death there was the shadow of a dark hand of someone more measured than Baldissi, a face in the shadows more mature, more manipulative.

And that was the man Sherlock Holmes was really after. If he could get Baldissi to lead him to that man. And that was why Sherlock Holmes had to taunt and tease Baldissi in return. Get him to concentrate on him alone. Draw Baldissi close enough to step forward and try to strike. To spare the others from harm. Just to strike out at him, specifically. Not at any of the others; innocent victims.

So he must put himself in position to become the bait in the trap again. Exactly as he had for Magnussen before Baldissi. He shuddered a little as he walked and thought. And dismissed that physical response from his psyche.

The vital intelligence from Mycroft had presented six cousins of Harry Baldwin, and from the photographs provided he had recognised the two men he had tumbled into the water from Waterloo Bridge; the same two men, he realised belatedly, who had witnessed the sleazy little assault in the factory yard after church.

 _Jesus Christ! How they would have loved the revenge and the retaliation of that sleazy little escapade!_

 _It is a miracle I am not already dead._

Recognised the two young men who had been watching the street outside the Waldorf - and who had handled a stinger and an airgun the evening before.

These were the four heartless minions he would tease and target in return. For two could - and would - play that game. Baldissi had rolled the dice. And now Sherlock Holmes would blow on them and throw them right back at him!.

He would draw Enrico Baldissi - and his protector - out of the shadows. Yes. He would leave Mycroft secure and in isolation, He would warn Lady Smallwood of the danger, and she would put the authorities on alert, ready for attack or defence. Or both. He would leave John Watson and Mary Morstan behind him, complacent and safe. So they could think of nothing but babies and imminent parenthood. As they should always have; without Sherlock Holmes to complicate their life - things - and mess them up.

He felt a tug of what must be regret about how he had lied to John Watson in the early hours of the morning, had duped and drugged him. Had started off lying to lull the man into a false sense of faith and trust and security….and had then found to his horror the words he spoke had real resonance to him. Had they really come from his heart and not just his intellect? He had not wanted ….

He frowned as he walked, and blocked that though process. Enough of that.

So. He would go to a place he knew and where there were other victims who needed his protection, others who were determined to be victorious over the blight Magnussen had put on their lives. A place where he could investigate in new areas, and attack from a different direction.

A place with other people and other mysteries to solve. And where there was another puzzle that may or may not be related. A puzzle about a violin. A girl who may or may not be a honey trap directed towards him. And where another young man may have other ( _or_ _the same?)_ dark and dangerous family connections.

And so he would follow Baldissi to Denmark and take the action there. Where he could focus without distractions and stop Baldissi. Solve the case. Make everything end happily ever after. He walked on, easing the bag on his shoulder.

o0o0o

"He's being deported."

Greg Lestrade stood at the desk in his office in New Scotland Yard, hands on his hips, glaring at Sherlock Holmes as if he was upset, disappointed. As if his consulting detective had let him down.

"Oh."

"Well, what else would you expect? We couldn't get him on anything other than illegal entry and residency. If you had been prepared to press rape charges….."

"We have had that conversation. Not going to happen."

"If you had pressed rape charges we would have him banged to rights. Those photographs are irrefutable."

"You really expect me to stand in court and abase myself? Even if he was found guilty Simeon Kosi Nzema would serve no more than four years with all the time off he would gain for good behaviour; he is no fool. Then be would be free to just start his operations again. An expense to the state and a problem postponed, not nullified.

No. It is best to return him to Ghana where his criminal life began. Release him back into the wild. Either the Ghanian authorities will get him, or the gangs he betrayed to come here and join forces with Magnussen."

"Seems a damn shame…."

"Not at all. Ghana's EOCO organisation tackles a lot of crime, And Nzema's crimes are typical Ghanian ones, money laundering, Romeo fraud, people trafficking. All things that would have made him appeal to Magnussen. Particularly the Romeo fraud." He was thoughtful for a moment.

"He won't want to go home. Let him confess anything he likes about anything he wants. And then deport him anyway. A far more appropriate punishment than prison. The Foreign Office is unlikely to complain after all…."

"You are being pretty cold, even for you."

"I am, aren't I? Back to my old self, then."

He grinned conspiratorially, and despite himself Lestrade found himself grinning back.

"Anything I can do for you in the meantime?"

"Keep an eye on John for me. I'm going abroad for a few days. I want him to stay here and be safely out of harm's way. Out of my way. And if he comes to you asking about me…well, you don't know anything about anything. Right?"

"When do I know anything about you? Ever?" Lestrade asked, a ring of truth behind the bantering words.

"Just as it should be," Sherlock Holmes declared.

And with a sketchy wave of his hand he was gone. Things to do.

.

o0o0o

"Ready to leave?"

The girl whose name was not Anthea entered Mycroft Holmes' office very quietly and for a moment watched John Watson sitting in the visitor's chair opposite the desk, deep in thought, elbows on the chair arms, head in hands. Immobile with eyes and mind miles away.

She had not been given authority to empathise, but to dismiss and direct.

So she watched him rouse at her words and come back to himself.

"Oh…..hello….hmn….Anthea. Or whoever you are today. Sorry. Miles away."

"Yes indeed," she agreed and gently ushered him to his feet to leave the office of Mycroft Holmes.

"Lots to think about…." he muttered.

"Yes," she repeated. "Can you find your way out? As you have never been here before? This place is a bit of a maze."

He was looking at her, but not quite hearing her. Lost in his thoughts.

He looked down at the paper in his hand. Reflected on his conversation with Mycroft Holmes. Hard facts. Strong impressions. New insights. Old certainties. Suggestions. Leads. Clues, even.

 _Why had Mycroft Holmes kept mentioning something as ridiculous and as insignificant as Robin Hood? Why Robin Hood? Was what Mycroft - superior, intellectual, unyielding Mycroft - trying to tell him?_

 _What did he know about Robin Hood? From the old films, the TV series, the Ladybird book…..?_

 _Green tights. Bow and arrows, Sheriff of Nottingham and forests. Richard The Lionheart. Friar Tuck and Little John. Maid Marian, Lincoln Green. Green hood. Robin Hood. Nickname for someone. A local nobleman who became famous as an outlaw. Lord Robert of Loxley. Ah._

"Tell me the way," he said. Eyes alert again, voice urgent now.

She smiled and moved through her own office to open the door to the outside corridor.

"Take the central stairs on your right," she said briskly. "That will take you to the main entrance."

But, holding the door with her right hand, she gestured with her left. Gestured towards the left. A totally different direction.

"Remember that? And then you turn right…." she said. Nodded. Repeating herself….and yet not quite.

Smiled into his eyes, ignored his puzzled look, and closed the door behind him before she could see which direction he was heading.

So instead of turning right to the stairs, he turned left as instructed. To see wherte that led him.

Miles of dark granite corridors with marble floors and dark mahogany doors faced him with their brass fittings and discreet nameplates and numbers.

 _If challenged by anyone he would just say he had been in a meeting - Anthea would vouch for him, he was sure - and then got lost. Anyone would understand that and believe it. Absolutely anyone._

He took the first corridor that branched right. Now he was on the sunny side of the building. His walking pace slowed, and he paused to read door plates carefully.

The fifth door he paused at was the one he needed. He read the name plate three times before he believed it. Took a deep breath, and opened the door without knocking.

In a smaller, sparser version of Mycroft Holmes' office a tall over slim elderly man was sitting before a computer screen. And looked up as John Watson entered his private space.

"Ah. Dr Watson. I have been half expecting you," was the calm greeting.

"Sir Robert….." many words rushed through his brain, but the simplest ones came out. A soft, not sharp, query. Polite, hesitant almost. Almost regretful.

 _Damn Mycroft Holmes!_

"Are you Robin?"

Sir Robert Drummond Howe sighed deeply, pulled a face, took off his spectacles and turned slightly away from the computer screen and towards the doctor.

"Please come in and sit down," he said.

And John Watson did so.

o0o0o

Tom Harris stood on the edge of the platform at London Bridge Station and vacantly watched a dirty dull mouse scurry alone the side of the rail track below. He didn't feel too well, but his mum had refused to let him have another day off work.

She didn't understand his problem. Said if he would do that silly park running stuff -running up walls and jumping off fences - and then fall into the Thames while being such an idiot, it was his own fault if swallowing a bit of water had made him queasy.

She never understood, and he never got any sympathy. But then, he was always a bit economical with the truth about his exploits. And this time telling her lies was definitely for the best.

The fact was, the idea had seemed a great bit of fun at the time, and had started off so well - playing a practical joke on that serious little foreign girl, pretending to want to kill her while nicking that backpack - but it all went wrong as soon as that weird bloke got in the way.

He had to be off duty police or army or something, the way he had fought and cursed and then chucked him and Jay off the bridge into the water. The fall had been terrifying, the impact has cricked his neck, and he swallowed a lot of mucky river before he and Jay floundered to the side and took themselves, wet and freezing cold and more than a bit scared, back home to Clerkenwell.

They told their mum they got caught in rain uptown. She had given them an old fashioned look that said she didn't believe a word but didn't care any longer, and they felt they had got away with it. Sort of.

But in the two days since, the incident had haunted them both. Somehow they knew they had overstepped the mark. But they also knew they would do it all again. As soon as the queasy feeling and the neck ache and the vague sense of shame wore off. For the lark, and the risk, and the thrill of it all. That and the inspiration and ambition of their glamorous clever cousin.

So now Tom stood and waited patiently on the platform for the Tube train to take him, like it did five days every week, up west to his job in the department store warehouse and boredom.

He looked vaguely at the advertising posters opposite, overheard snippets of conversation around him from other travellers pressed uncomfortably close. As usual.

"She said I could do as much overtime as I wanted next week…."

"Only three weeks to Lanzarote….."

"I hate this winter weather….."

"Over the edge with you. Off you pop."

This time the voice was not female or London accented. It was male and baritone and hard. And at the same instant Tom took a push in the back that had him whirling his arms to defy gravity and try to stay standing on the platform before plunging down three feet to land on the grey grimy train track, making the mice scurry and the dust rise.

He knew enough to twist himself away from the live rail, scraped hands and knees on the sharp stone chip aggravate that ballasted the steel. Scrabbled to his feet as fast as he could before the next train rushed in at speed and threatened to turn him into marshmallow.

He could imagine the tannoy announcement now

 _Due to an incident on the Circle line heading west, trains will be diverted…._

Fortunately eager hands reached down to pull him back up to safety before he started gibbering in panic. And one pair of helping hands belonged to a London Transport constable of B Division.

"You OK, lad?" he asked as he brought Tom back to his feet on the safety of the platform as another train swept in. Then carefully brushed him down, checking for injury.

"Yeah. Thanks."

"You don't seem to be hurt. A funny turn, was it? Or did someone push you?"

"A funny turn, I think. Was off work poorly yesterday, but my mum wouldn't let me stay off today….." his voice died away, as he realised he sounded about twelve now, and not a grown up eighteen.

"No mate, you were pushed. Look."

The policeman gestured behind him, and, puzzled, Tom struggled out of his parka to see what all the fuss was about. And what other travellers were now looking at.

"That wasn't there when I left home," he stammered. "I would have noticed."

"Looks like you've made an enemy somewhere, then," said the constable. Who then simply walked off, unperturbed, and left him as Tom stared at the back of his olive green canvas coat.

A large figure two, a foot high, was scrawled on the back of his coat in chalk. And underneath, three capital letters. **D. I. E.**

 **2**

 **DIE**

Tom looked at the letters, heart thumping, trying to will the writing away.

Oh. Shit. Oh, shit, he thought. Shitshitshit…..

o0o0o

Jason Harris left his brother to turn in another direction across the smart new concourse of Tower Bridge Station. And then nearly gave himself a hernia trying to walk through a ticket barrier that did not open for him when he posted his travel card through the automatic ticket reader that normally sprung open the chromium gate.

The ticket was spit straight back at him from the machine, as Jay made a strangled sound at having been brought so fiercely to a halt. Elbowed aside as the travellers behind him headed for the trains, he stepped back in surprise.

It was a season ticket he carried. It had three weeks left to run, and had never let him down before.

He tried again. The ticket was spat out again and he shouted a curse in frustration. He didn't want to be late for work again; he had been warned about his time keeping more than once….. So he tried to leap the barrier, failed, fell back and sprawled across the marble floor. Got back up, swore, and tried again.

By this time other travellers were walking a large circle around him and to avoid him, and heading for other ticket barriers. And now one of the station staff was heading his way.

"A problem with your ticket sir?" The official asked, reasonably enough.

"Bloody ticket! Bloody technology!" Jay shouted. He was never patient at the best of times, his mum was always saying so. Normally he quite enjoyed the way this irritated her and made her focus on him for once. But at the moment his lack of patience was not good.

"Perhaps you are just trying to use an out of date ticket?" the woman suggested helpfully with a calm smile.

This was a little problem that happened a dozen times a day, no need to panic. Just keep the customer quiet and thinking. Finding the right card in a pocket or a wallet…..

"An easy mistake to make. Just take a deep breath and check your pockets for the right ticket, sir."

Jay looked up and glared at her. Nothing seemed to have gone right since that incident on Waterloo Bridge the other day. It had fair rattled him, and was still doing so even now. Ridiculous! It was just an incident with a silly little girl who should have been a push over and a poncey bloke who should not have had such lethal street smarts…

He put his right hand into his pocket to see if the ticket he had meant to use was in there. But instead he pulled out a wallet. A purse. Then another. Another wallet and a billfold. Two wrist watches and a charm bracelet.

He could see the official look at all these things and signal across to a policeman watching from beside the down escalator. Who started to walk forward towards them.

It was perhaps not the most sensible thing to say: "They're not mine! I've never seen them before!" And then shriek: "I don't know how they got there! I'm no pickpocket!"

He looked wildly at the crowd around him, now slowing to see what was going on. But his eye was suddenly caught by the disappearing yet distinctive back of a tall man in a dark coat that looked vaguely familiar. Until the policeman claimed his attention this time.

"Can you explain the contents of your pockets, sir?" asked the policeman, voice bright but strong. "And the meaning of the writing on the back of your coat?"

"What writing?" Jason Harris asked, twisting to see his reflection in the Perspex on one of the large advertising panels.

Written in chalk on the back of his anorak were just six letters.

 **C.A.N.** read the top line.

 **D.I.E.** read the second line.

Jay - wallets, watches and purses forgotten - stopped still. Not believing what he thought he had just read, he took off his coat and held it up to see. But it still read the same thing.

 **CAN DIE.**

"It's a frame up, officer!" he cried out. And then his mind went blank with a sort of fear. But not of the policeman beside him.

o0o0o

Sandro Seraphini awoke with a start. Working a night shift at the mail depot this week he had only been in bed for a couple of hours, and normally slept soundly.

But he had been having a horrible nightmare. About rats. Dirty great rats. Rats that had come up out of the sewers and were chasing him down alleys and into his house. Rats that took no notice of the shiny new airgun he brandished at them and threatened to shoot them with.

And where was that expensive airgun now, anyway? No-one would tell him; they just laughed! But shooting at four men like that….and then having the gun wrestled away and being knocked out….that was the stuff of nightmares in itself. Worse than the rats.

He kept having that dream. Seeing that grim face, those hard glittering eyes glaring down at him with such anger and power…

But there were still rats. Rats that ate their way through the front door and chased him up the stairs and into his bedroom. Rats that scurried over his bedclothes, even though he hid under the duvet and begged them to stop.

He could even feel their little claws catching in the cotton stuff of his duvet cover. Which wasn't right!

He opened his eyes, fast and wide. And it was no dream! He was awake! Awake in his own bedroom! And running about his bed, and on the floor around it, were four dirty brown rats with shining eyes and yellow teeth. And they were all around him!

He sat up in bed. And he screamed then. Was screaming, and was wide awake.

He heard a ripple of hard male laughter. Knew it wasn't him. Yet he also knew he was - should be - the only person in the house. Heard footsteps striding down the jetty at the back of the terrace.

And as his eyes adjusted and he shook the two rats clinging to the duvet onto the floor, he looked across at himself in the dressing table mirror.

Written on the glass, in large capital letters - and thickly, with his own lip salve, he realised angrily - were two words.

 **P.L.A.Y.**

And underneath:

 **D.I.E.**

Suddenly the rats and the nightmare were forgotten.

He needed to tell Harry! And quickly!

o0o0o

Knowing nothing of what had happened to his cousins, Piero Smith was heading out to the shopping centre. Today was his day off work, and he had promised himself some new trainers.

The least he could treat himself to after the disaster that was yesterday. The stinger he had stolen years ago had come in useful and had it's proper effect, but being knocked out by that smarmy upper class idiot Harry hated so much had been embarrassing, as well as the reason for a terrible headache overnight that was only just wearing off.

He left his home, clicking the gate closed in front of the maisonette he shared with his grandparents and two sisters.

He was so absorbed in his own thoughts he did not hear or see a tall figure fall into step behind him. Nor, as he paused at the entrance to the shopping centre while deciding which shop would be the easiest to steal his new footwear from, did he notice the figure behind him come up close and raise a hand.

It was only a moment later, when he felt a peculiar warmth twitching down his spine - _and something wriggling! -_ that he started to pay attention. And by then the shadow that had been behind him had whirled away and was observing from afar.

Piero put his hand down the back of his shirt in a reflex movement. After some inelegant scrabbling the hand came out with something, just one little something, between finger and thumb.

"Oh, God! It's a maggot! A real live maggot! Down my back!"

It is an unusual spectacle to see a man ripping his own clothes off in the middle of a London shopping centre on a weekday morning.

So the shoppers who had been peacefully going about their everyday chores found themselves stopping and staring - and being highly amused - for some moments before a security man ran up to envelop the now naked young man with his own coat and usher onlookers away.

The naked young man kept shouting 'Maggots! Ugh! Maggots!" and was dancing a little jig to be rid of the tiny cream wriggling objects as they fell to the floor from his clothes and skin.

And the disgarded kagoule thrown to the ground was telling it's own tale to anyone who might be looking.

Chalked on the back were three words.

Capital letters. One word to a line.

 **T.H.I.S.**

 **G.A.M.E.**

 **D.I.E.**

When Piero noticed the words he stopped thrashing around and dancing, wearing nothing but his shoes, and stood frozen for a moment.

He understood the message, and forgot all about the maggots.

And he looked wildly round. The centre was full of hundreds of people. But he could not see the tall, dark haired man he just knew had to be responsible for this. This retaliation.

o0o0o

Sherlock Holmes walked away, smiling grimly to himself. Finding the decomposing dead cat and it's attendants outside a derelict basement flat had been something of a master stroke. So the message to Harry Baldwin now rang out hard and clear.

 **2 CAN PLAY THIS GAME. DIE.**

And if that did not put him back directly into the firing line - then nothing would.

He checked his watch to see how much time he had left before needing to head for Heathrow and the flights that would finally take him back to Aalborg.

He had thrown down the challenge. Now he had to settle the field of play and offer the bait that would bring the enemy to battle.

He walked on, paying most of his attention to his phone. Trusting his instincts, all on high alert, to warn him if anyone fell into step behind him.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Author's Notes:**

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin was a Victorian designer artist and architect, leader of thre Gothic Revival style, who redesigned the interior of the Houses Of Parliament and Elizabeth Tower.

Chemsex: Increasingly popular sex and drugs combined prostitution, especially male sex.

EOCO: Ghana's Economic and Organised Crime Office based in Accra. Combats the country's main crime fields in alignment with world security forces.

Romeo Fraud: Online and reality financial fraud where lonely people abroad are conned and scammed for money under pretence of romance and relationship.

Ladybird Book: Much loved, small form English children's book imprint.

London Transport Police, more correctly British Transport Police. Independent specialist police force that works with other London forces. B Division covers London and the south east of England.


	9. Chapter 9

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 9

 _Things are always easier when imagination ceases and action begins_

 _Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_

"I don't know who he is. I don't know everything."

Lady Elizabeth Smallwood, looking cool and disinterested and as if she had been at her desk forever, shot a quick assessing look at Sherlock Holmes.

"You left my house two days ago looking ill, and now you invade my office looking like death. Just take a pull, will you?"

"What is the point of you? You don't give me help and you won't give me information. All I want from you is knowledge of Alfredo Catalani. It's not rocket science."

He paced the floor in front of her desk; six steps to the left, whirl and return. Six steps to the right, whirl and return. She watched him with an appearance of dispassion she did not feel and resisted the temptation to get to her feet, circle the desk and stop him with her own body and trap him between her arms into stillness. Body and mind.

"Watch your mouth and don't push your luck," she shot back instead. Angry, harassed, disquieted by his attitude now. "You are talking to me, not your brother." Paused, and deliberately took a long deep breath. " I am not - as you might think - omnipotent. Nor do I know every man, hero or villain, in the universe. Catalani may well be off piste, off record, off centre, off hand, off his head, off everything. I cannot help you with this. I would if I could."

"You must have Mafia connections, surely…"

"Off the cuff, no. Certainly not if his field of operation is Europe, not England. Have you presented this name to Mycroft?"

"Of course not."

"I won't ask."

She was aware of tension between the brothers at the best of times. This was far from the best of times; both had been at fault in the matter of Charles Augustus Magnussen, and each blamed the other for the way the affair had unfolded.

"You are going to Denmark. Why?"

"Baldwin - or Baldissi, whichever you prefer - is heading for Denmark today, so I assume he is returning to Aalborg. Aalborg is where he carved up Magnussen's younger brother two days ago. I fear he may be going to target Johan Magnussen again. Easy meat.

"Him or Ellie and Ari Sondersun, or Fredrik Sondersun and Piet Bruhl. Pedder Magnussen. Or all of them. More targets for him in Denmark, more accessibility. And me not there. Not yet. So I need to be there. You see? You get that?"

"Why not let the Danish _politiet_ take him down when he arrives; or get Mycroft to push the _politiets aktionsstyrke_ special forces to follow him? Get you intel from the _Politiets Efterretningstjeneste?_ "

"I don't trust official forces to take this seriously enough, act fast enough. Or even be able to keep him in their sights. He is provably slippery and if he spots them…he may go so far underground I won't find him until it's too late. And I want to know what his connection is in Denmark; what takes him there. I have my own contacts there.

"Bottom line is I am the person he wants to hurt, the adversary he expects to see. I prefer to keep it between him and me. Keep his focus from turning to the rest of you, Magnussen's other victims. Flush him out."

She nodded, understanding now.

"I would really have expected him to target you or Mycroft first; except you are both too well protected for him to get to you," the consulting detective reflected.. " The Watsons were away while the doctor was being debriefed about Appledore, and I was in prison. If you recall." His tone was arch and haughty. She could see something simmering within him. Anger, certainly, but something more. But he was not expressing or confiding. And she was not about to push him on that.

"Perhaps the youngest Magnussen was all he could reach," he mused aloud." Perhaps he is working from the outside in: in which case Magnussen's brothers would be obvious first targets; the people I know least. So he would choose them to increase leverage against me. Perhaps Harry Baldwin felt they had rejected their brilliant brother for too many years?" He shrugged.

"That makes a warped sense. Target the brothers first, then: physical damage to Johan, something not physical, but more personal and more expensive, to hit Pedder - steal the Holderness Guarneri violin on Waterloo Bridge. Which I happened upon and foiled."

"Coincidence?"

"You know as well as I do coincidence only happens in fairy tales. But I have a lead into that little conundrum, and that lead is already in Aalborg ready to be chased down." He skimmed his finger tips across his lips, an absent minded tell of concentration. "I also need to find where Baldissi went to ground in the ten days after Magnussen's death before he resurfaced. And who shielded him.

"Mycroft and Lestrade have attempted to find that hiding place from their various perspectives. So we know he did not go to family or cousins in Clerkenwell. He does not appear on any London hotel or travel inventory yet traced, and there is no record of him having gone abroad until the day of Johan's attack.

"Yet he had to be somewhere. In this country, then. But where? Who gave him shelter? Shelters him still? He appears as if from nowhere, wreaks havoc, and then disappears again.

"This may not be just about Baldissi. I must find his hiding place, and his protector, to solve this conundrum. Stop them both."

He stopped his pacing and leant across the desk towards her, sea storm eyes dark and angry.

"He is after me, Elizabeth. Me, specifically, at the end of this stupid game. And the end he intends is to kill me after he has made everyone else suffer for me. Because I killed Magnussen, his hero.

"I may have to kill him before he kills me. I need to prepare you for that possibility."

"Why? So I can help a friend? Give you my blessing? My absolution? Protection? Formal permission to do that as my contracted agent?

"All would be presumptuous. I never presume. And I am certainly not your friend." He frowned at her, peered more closely. "Are you distracted by grief, Elizabeth? Is that weakening you? Affecting your judgement?"

"Of course not." Her head rose. His sudden concern, while expressed so acidly, took her unawares and made her throat catch. For it was still less than a month since her husband had killed himself - to avoid Magnussen's blackmail more than his own terminal illness. And Sherlock, she realised with a shaft of anger, was uncomfortably too aware of that on her behalf.

He had appeared on the scene that deathly morning even before the police and ambulance, and had taken Jack Smallwood's death with the same icy revealing calm she herself expressed. The same unspoken resolve.

"I am not comfortable with you doing this," she breathed. Holding in emotion and reaction.

"You can't stop me. This situation has happened despite our best efforts," he stated coldly. "But I will stop this as quickly as I can. Keeping Mycroft out of it as much as possible. And the Watsons. But Dr Watson is on a mission of his own, thanks to my bloody brother." A flash of anger, a dipped head to erase it. " If he comes to you, asks you about me….." the voice wavered, unusually, to a stop.

He was pouting, shaking his head in something between anger and disbelief. She did not ask him about that, or demand confidences. She was fighting hard enough for her own self control, and had no space to consider his.

"There is nothing I can tell him because I know nothing. You have always been an enigma, and I prefer you to remain that enigma. Satisfied?"

"Thank you, yes. I prefer that too."

o0o0o

As Sherlock Holmes left the marbled halls of power, Dr John Watson entered them. Bounced angrily off Mycroft Holmes into the quieter orbit of Sir Robert Drummond Howe.

Now sat opposite the older man's desk in the way he had sat opposite Mycroft Holmes'. But this time without the fire, the emotional impulse. Without knowing where he was going and what he was going to ask.

Sir Robert Drummond Howe leant forward and looked at him through hooded pale blue eyes, interlaced bony fingers showing nobbled slightly arthritic joints, elbows resting on his desk, and put his chin down onto the dipping backs of his hands. It looked like a travesty of Sherlock Holmes' own thinking pose, and reaction to that sudden thought caught a shaft of something in John Watson's chest.

"Mycroft warned me you might come," he began, calmly.

"Warned you? To tell you what to say? Prepare old ground in a new light?"

"Of course not." A frown, a small shake of the head. "He would never do that."

And John Watson reflected that Robin was either too trusting or too ingenuous for his own good. Perhaps.

"But you are Robin?"

"Yes."

"So who was Isabel?"

He looked away, drew a deep breath, and asked: "What do you know already?"

"Almost nothing," he admitted, realising only honesty was going to achieve anything. "Sherlock has been through a difficult time recently. Stress. Physical discomfort. Yesterday he had a PTSD flashback that stopped him in his tracks. Worse than I have ever seen. He….." Watson hesitated, took a leap of faith. "….went back in time, To that time, He was very distressed. He mentioned you. Mentioned Robin. Isabel's death.

"I am sorry to hear that. . It changed all our lives, of course….but I regret he should still be so affected, so long after the event."

"I am trying to help him, Sir Robert. And to do that I have to know. Need to understand."

"I don't know how much I can tell you, Dr Watson. My memories of that time are imperfect. I did not experience what William - Sherlock - experienced."

"I realise that. But anything will help me, Sir Robert. Anything. Please."

The civil servant swivelled his chair abruptly away, and with his back to John Watson contemplated the view outside, but when he suddenly slumped and put his hand to his eyes briefly, John Watson knew he was not seeing pigeons strutting a deserted inner courtyard of Whitehall, but events lifetimes away in time and geography.

The leather chair swung back towards him.

"Ask," he said. The word was colourless but committed.

"Who was Isabel?"

"My daughter."

He said the words without heat or emotion, but finally John Watson understood the older man's reluctance to speak.

A silver framed photograph on the desk was turned round, and the doctor saw a laughing freckled face, flaxen hair and youthful brown eyes of depth and intelligence.

"This was taken three days before she died. William was very taken by her. His first crush, I think. But they were also friends. She was fifteen."

"How did she die?"

"She was shot."

Somehow, he was not surprised. But he still had to ask the question he most feared asking. Even though his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"Did Sherlock shoot her?"

Robert Drummond Howe's face gave him the answer before he even spoke, and the rush of relief John Watson felt at that made him feel giddy, released a tension in his gut he had not even realised was there. Until then.

"Of course not. How could you ever think….?" He put the back of a hand to his mouth.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to distress you….."

"I do not take out these memories and look at them, Dr Watson, Not ever. Too distressing. But I will try. If this will finally help William….so ask."

He repeated the word, sucked a huge breath and squared his shoulders. John Watson did too.

"Where did this happen?"

"Sri Lanka. Ceylon, as was. Former British colony, with a quietly simmering civil war that went on for over thirty years. That civil war caught up with us."

"How?"

"We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. At a time when rebels were trying to push their cause, targeting foreigners for maximum leverage and publicity. Not that our incident got any publicity; far too politically sensitive." He shrugged, his mouth twisting.

"Why was that?"

"Siward was a rising star of the diplomatic service, as you probably know…."

"Stewart, did you say? Who is Stewart?"

"Not Stewart - Siward. Mycroft and William's father. Siward is the English version of an old name from the Norwegian side of the family, it seems. Sig - Siger - Sigurd - Siegfried - there are various versions. It's am old Nordic name from folklore. Means Victory. Siger was a hero, killed the dragon Fafnir. You may have noticed the Holmes family goes in for unusual names?"

He grinned then, despite himself, and John Watson grinned back. Yes, he had noticed!

"Just a bit," he agreed. "But I'm sorry; I know very little about the Holmes family."

"Indeed? Well, they have always been very private people, so it is not surprising." Robin nodded. "The family has been in service to the monarch, in the British diplomatic service, for generations. Siward was the latest of the line. At the time of the incident he was seconded to the High Commission in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, and I was his assistant.

"I had already been out there with my family for five years. A beautiful country, with wonderful people. But this political thread kept flaring and rising without resolution…." he restrained himself from the political discourse, paused for thought.

"His family - William and his mother - came out to join him for Christmas. She was there officially to attend a seminar on plans to build a space centre….do you know anything about Mrs Holmes?"

"I understand she was a mathematician?"

"Indeed. A precocious talent, a great theoretical brain and a rising star: she wrote several ground breaking books, and was tipped for a Nobel Prize. Her theories on combustion were going to revolutionise astral engineering, propellant technology. She and Siward had met at Oxford as students."

"Midge was never the classic diplomatic wife, of course, had always barrelled on with her career, even with two boys. Of course she had her own theories for bringing up children. Mycroft was the perfect product of that regime, as you would expect. William was….something else. Fortunately, as it turned out."

"Fortunately?"

Robin whirled his hands, flustered. "Because he is a unique life force, is he not?"

John Watson grinned and nodded.

"And Midge?"

"Midge Holmes. Mignonette Louise Vernet Holmes, to be correct. Nice name, suits her. Mignonette is a herb with lacy silver flowers - like her beautiful ash blonde hair."

"But what happened?"

"This…thing….this incident…happened. " Sir Robert Drummond Howe leant forward, and his narration began. "It changed all our lives. For the worst." he shook his head. "But that is not what you need to know."

"We were on what was to be a brief fact finding trip up country. Nothing special. But it was the chance for us all to visit wonderful waterfalls, see elephants, tea plantations - get into the spirit of the country at Christmas, take a bit of a break. For Midge to see a couple of potential space centre sites. We should have stayed at home, safe in the mission compound." He shook his head. "Hindsight is a wonderful thing."

"Yes. I'm sorry….asking you to relive this."

"Hmn." Robin looked up and away to take inspiration from the ceiling, almost gave himself a shake. "Well…let's say I will only relive this the once.

"We travelled in a mini bus. Staying away just a couple of nights. Grass roots accommodation in a little village - Sri Lankan people are very hospitable, considered our visit an honour.

"Leaving the bus, walking up the path to our guest house, there were shots, out of nowhere. No warning; the rebels had known we were coming and targeted us. We were proverbial sitting ducks.

"Siward and our security man were in the lead, Isabel and William just behind them. We just got out of the bus in the order of who had been sitting nearest to the doors, you see? Not selective." John Watson could tell Sir Robert Drummond Howe was years and miles away from him at that moment.

"The security man had an smg. So he was the first person shot, down and dead immediately. A bullet through the heart took Isabel from behind. She died instantly. I saw it happen. The bullet passed through her and missed William - they'd been laughing and holding hands, very close together - but hit Siward in the head. William caught him as he went down, dragged him into the house.

"It was chaos. Midge ran forward to Siward, I grabbed my wife and our two little boys…behind us the driver was shot, died at the wheel. The rest of us made it inside. Four adults, one badly hurt. Three kids. All the locals disappeared leaving us alone and holed up there. Under fire. Under siege."

"For how long?"

"Two days. Someone from the village got word to Colombo, and troops were sent for us, we learnt later. It all took time."

"And you must have suffered every minute of that time. You took charge and kept everyone together? Gave first aid to Mr Holmes?"

"Yes. Yes, of course. I must have, mustn't I? I was the only one able to take charge, wasn't I?" He glanced up at John Watson, his eyes distant and bruised. He suddenly looked very old. "I don't remember any of it very well, to be honest. Frightened you see. I drive a desk, Dr Watson, I have never wanted to be Action Man. Well out of my comfort zone. We all were. My boys were six and eight, Fiona, my wife, six months pregnant. Isabel dead. We were traumatised."

"Where was George Bradshaw? The usual bodyguard."

"Bradshaw? He was on weekend leave. He joined the rescue squad."

"What did you do?"

"Do? We just…. held on. We couldn't fight our way out, not with Siward injured and the kids with us. Not with the odds against us. We only had the security man's smg."

"How did you get that?"

"William picked it up. As he stumbled over the body. William and Midge patched up Siward with a first aid kit from the house, and Midge cared for him. Yes. The bandits knew we were going nowhere, kept us pinned down. Whenever they tried making a move, we gave a short burst of gunfire to keep them back. Rationing the bullets. We didn't sleep."

"How did it end?"

"End? Oh. When the special forces team arrived. As soon as the bandits realised rescue was on it's way they rushed us, attacked the building. There was shooting. They wanted some result, you see, a hostage. As a bargaining tool, a shield, for ransom.

"At the same time a group of them started hacking through the back wall of the guest house - just mud adobe, you see - with machetes while we were busy at the front, coping with the attack. Near where Siward was lying. I'm not sure how he was still alive, but he was. They would have taken him, even so ill. The top man, after all."

Suddenly there was a wobble in the voice that had been admirably cool until that moment.

"I remember the hole appearing. Getting bigger…..I remember the shooting. Turning from concentrating on the front and outside, to the back of the room and inside….it was terrifying."

"You were shooting? Using your last bullets in desperation?"

"It's all a bit of a blank…I remember William running and hauling Siward into the middle of the room and away from immediate danger. Shoving Midge after him, trying to protect her. My boys were screaming. Fiona was screaming. I was screaming…." he put his head into his hands. The narrative stopped.

"What happened then? Sir Robert! What happened then?"

"Someone - some hands - reached in. William was barring the way to his parents, you see, waving the sub machine gun. Out of bullets. The hands grabbed William. He didn't stand a chance. He went backwards through the hole. Dragged backwards. He looked so small, suddenly…shouting and twisting…then he was gone. So then Midge was screaming too."

" _What happened to him? What happened then?"_ John Watson found himself on his feet, leaning across the desk in horror and anger.

"I don't know, Dr Watson. And that's the truth."

o0o0o

"You are a very strange young man, Sherlock Holmes. You kill my brother in cold blood. Yet here you are, asking if I am well and worrying about safeguarding our younger brother."

"Yes. A funny old world, isn't it?"

He walked tall and erect into the sitting room of the suite overlooking the River Thames on the top floor of the Savoy Hotel, hands behind his back at parade rest, smiling that cool detached smile that always seemed to reassure people who were never quite certain until that moment whether he could smile at all.

He had wanted to check on Pedder Magnussen after the previous evening: the attack by Enrico Baldissi and his cousins upon Davy Gallagher's taxi had created chaos and seen Magnussen retreat, conversation unfinished, to his hotel.

So now, the following morning, it was Sherlock Holmes' responsibility to complete their conversation, ascertain facts, move forward. Blank out almost everything of the previous night. All evidence of his weakness. His failure.

He had walked the Strand and into Savoy Court, and before the Edwardian opulence of brass, glass and mahogany that was the Savoy Hotel, he paused before the revolving doors, greeted by the frock coated and top hatted doorman.

"'Morning, Shezza."

"Any intel on Magnussen?"

"The Danish gentleman? He's a regular. Takes a river view suite."

It looked like a formal salutation from the doorkeeper, a brief nod in return. A businesslike conversation short, without inflexion or physical tells. Yet both smiled inwardly to themselves. Former members of his homeless network like Chris Walsh turned up in so many unlikely places.

Sherlock Holmes crossed the shiny immaculate marble foyer to the reception desk, and was directed to a classically elegant suite of black white and yellow, with admirable views across the river.

Pedder Magnussen was sitting at a small oval breakfast table before the windows, drinking coffee and reading a morning broadsheet. Relaxed in his dark suit, with his trim dark blond beard and spectacles, he looked so much like his dead brother the jolt of recognition almost brought bile to Sherlock Holmes' throat, and he swallowed it down angrily.

 _That was then! This is now! Concentrate and focus. Work the plan._

"Good morning, Sherlock. Coffee?"

This Magnussen did not offer death or destruction. Not dominance. Sherlock Holmes had to keep reminding himself. Instead he smiled and offered refreshment.

 _Put down that instinct. Relax. This is not the same man…_

Sherlock released a tense breath and folded down into the seat opposite, accepted the filled second cup on the table now pushed towards him.

"You are well? After the events of yesterday? The excitement of the evening?"

The enquiry was polite, cool, unengaged. And the consulting detective replied in kind.

"I am fine. Thank you. Just a typical eventful evening. In my line of business."

"Rather you than me," the Dane responded. He straightened the newspaper on the table before him, and folded it carefully.

"What exactly is your line of business, Pedder?"

"Nothing as exciting as yours," was the smooth reply. "Our father had a small engineering business. Which I developed. I manufacture all those boring essential little metal things people cannot do without - nails, screws, pins, tacks. Not exciting, but very profitable." He quirked an almost apologetic look to admit to something so humdrum.

"The family business was too boring for Charles. But perfect for me. So I could concentrate on more important things in my life."

"Music?"

"Music. Yes. I regret having to admit I have always been better at listening than playing, but I hope that with my scholarships and sponsorships I open doors for other people more talented than I."

"Yes How did you acquire the Holderness Guarneri? And for Alyssa Almedova?"

"Business contacts tipped me off that it was coming onto the market. I indicated an interest, and bid, and acquired it on behalf of Magnus Industries. A great boost to the imagine of a very workaday company like mine being connected to great art and artistry."

He smiled then, the pride showing. "I have many connections in the world of classical music. Many performers wanted to play the Guarneri. After two temporary loans Miss Almedova's musical style and work ethic simply appealed to me. She has the instrument on a five year agreement. After that, we shall see."

The smile withdrew, and he looked keenly at the younger man.

"You know the young lady?"

Sherlock Holmes' eyes skittered away. His shoulders moved.

"You could say that. " He hesitated, then continued: "Rescuing her and the Guarneri from attack on Waterloo Bridge…..she not only sees me as some sort of hero, but of romantic and sexual appeal."

Pedder Magnusen laughed then.

"And that is a trial to you? You should be so lucky, my friend."

"Her attention is flattering. You might say….we have a relationship."

The blush he allowed to show made Magnussen grin, lean forward to speak more conspiratorially. Man to man.

"She shows remarkably good taste, I think. But - forgive me - I had presumed, because of my late brother's interest in you, that you….."

A dismissive flick of the hand, a frustrated click of the tongue, stopped him in mid sentence.

"I abhor labels. Their expectations and restrictions."

"I….see." Magnussen said, although he didn't. He looked anew at the uniquely handsome man opposite him, within easy touching distance. And he wondered - if he actually reached out and touched that pale exotic creature - what the response would be? And for a moment the possibility of that overwhelmed him.

He could see what had fascinated his brother - not just the lean athletic frame with it's easy grace and erect carriage, but also the unusual soft dark curls that demanded discipline by a taming hand, the unique all seeing opalescent eyes - but below the high born surface a searing unfathomable intelligence, an electricity that seemed to pour off him, even when still and relaxed as he was now. And as for that musical ability… .

"Your colleague, Doctor Watson. He seems very close to you. Attentive. Caring."

"You don't get an award for discreet probing," Sherlock Holmes said, his voice harsh in it's detachment. "But just so we are clear. We were close once, flatmates and colleagues. After he returned from war in Afghanistan and was establishing a new life and career.

"Many people have assumed we were in a sexual or romantic relationship. I do not comment or such intrusive speculation. All I will say is that his life moved on, as it should. A new medical career, a wife and a baby on the way. You will understand we have not been close in any way for a long time. He lingers in my life out of habit and nostalgia for times past. He does not like to admit that time in his life is over."

"A little sad, Mr Holmes."

"Fact of life, Mr Magnussen." He drained his coffee cup, replaced it in the saucer, and sat absently looking at it. "I understand the man I suspect attacked your brother and has attacked me will be in Aalburg later today. I fear he may be planning to attack your brother, or yourself. Or others. So I will go to Aalburg to see if I can find him before he damages anyone else. Do I assume you will be returning home today?"

"Tomorrow. I have two business meetings today. Tomorrow evening I shall meet Miss Almedova, watch one of her master classes at the Utzen Centre, perhaps, and return to work after the Christmas holidays, after Twelfth Night."

"You took this huge and expensive suite just for two nights?"

"I come to England every year around this time. Indulge in some quality music. The Albert Hall, Festival Hall, several churches….a highlight of my year."

"Perhaps I shall see you later in Aalborg? One of the first things I plan to do there is to visit your brother. Make sure he is well, recovering from his ordeal."

Sherlock Holmes stood, offered his hand to shake, and Magnussen took it.

"That is kind of you. I shall look forward to seeing you again."

Sherlock Holmes dropped his head in a formal nod, turned to leave.

Magnussen's cheerful call of " _Held og lykke! Vi ses snart_!" - Good luck - see you soon - followed him to the door.

And then he was moving again. Down the marble stairs with their gilt handrails, through reception, out of the doors. A brief touch of a hand, the surreptitious passing of a £50 note and muttered words, and he was away, across the taxi turning circle and back onto the busy Strand.

His expression was set into the impassive mask that hid his furious thought processes.

And as he walked he had telephone calls to make.

o0o0o

John Watson sat opposite Sir Robert Drummond Howe and felt as if he had just run into a wall.

"You don't know what happened to Sherlock - to William - when he was taken? HOW do you not know?"

The older man on the far side of the desk waved his hands to try to placate and reassure.

"It was a very difficult situation. Our rescuers called in a helicopter to take us out. Siward was rushed to hospital in Colombo with Midge at his side; he was not expected to live. But he was stabilised and sent immediately across the world to the military hospital in Birmingham that specialises in such injuries.

"Fiona, the boys and I - Isabel's body - were evacuated home to England immediately. We were all traumatised. Still are, I suppose."

"You are telling me….." John Watson was standing, still leaning over the desk, horror and disbelief written across his face. "You are telling me that you all - all of you - just abandoned William? Just left him to his fate?"

"Do calm down, Dr Watson! Of course he was not abandoned. Mycroft was on his way to take charge. A small advance party was sent up country to find and rescue the boy - track where he had been taken."

"Bradshaw and Gallagher," John Watson said.

"What? Who? Yes."

"Why those two especially?"

"Bradshaw had been Siward's bodyguard. He was the only one who really knew what William looked like, knew his character. I think Gallagher was chosen because his wife was Sinhalese, so he knew the language and could converse with the locals."

John Watson suddenly recalled Davy Gallagher lying on the floor of 221B trying to tell Sherlock he was safe, to put the gun down. In a foreign language. So how long had Sherlock been captive in Sri Lanka to gain a smattering of the language?

"How long….was he lost?"

"Two weeks, I think. The soldiers refused to give up, and they finally found him, brought him home. Obviously they did."

"But what happened to him?" John Watson could feel himself frowning, striving to remember Sherlock's words the previous evening - _was it truly only yesterday? - "_ He - Sherlock - William - said something about a coffee house last night. What did that mean?"

"I don't know. I really don't. We were never officially told that and I…we…didn't enquire. I had enough on my plate, you see? Isabel's death, Fiona shocked into a premature delivery. The boys terrified. We came home, got help. I…." he looked away, looked sad. His shoulders fell, and to John Watson he had the air of a man about to cry.

"Our world changed for ever that day, Doctor Watson. None of us have ever forgotten what happened. And I try not to remember. I can't understand how we got out alive. I am just so very, very grateful." He shook gently with regret.

"My priorities changed. Afterwards. I've been content with a safe desk job ever since. Being alive is better than being ambitious. That's what I learnt."

John Watson looked at the broken functionary before him. Understood the wilful ignorance as much as the reason for it, but still half despised it.

"Did you keep in touch with the Holmes family?"

But he knew the answer before he heard it.

"No. I have always felt in the wrong about that. But Siward was so ill, for so long, afterwards. So there never seemed a right time, somehow. The it was too late. Mycroft understands….does not judge.

"He made a remarkable recovery, of course. But he never returned to the service. Never was the same man again. Midge turned her back on her career to look after him. The public story was that she was giving up her career to look after her boys. So no-one knew how ill Siward was. But it was Siward above all. The one loved the most, sacrificed her career for. Was determined to heal.

"And he is remarkable, Dr Watson. A miracle recovery. He reinvented himself. Found a safe haven as a classics teacher in a minor public school. If the rest of us had half the courage of the Holmes family….." his voice faded away.

"Tell me how to find Lady Smallwood's office," John Watson's voice was gentle. But it was still an order.

o0o0o

"I appreciate your concern, but there is nothing I can tell you."

Her voice was cold and clear and the doctor understood how it was she and Sherlock Holmes related as equals.

The archetypal over thin, tightly controlled ice blonde, he though, meeting her for the first time. A woman with at least the power and influence of Mycroft Holmes. The woman who had launched Sherlock into the debacle that had become the legacy of Charles Augustus Magnussen. But he was not impressed.

She had risen to her feet as he burst into her sanctum unannounced. Not alarmed exactly, but prepared for action, if necessary. A tough character, he thought immediately, inconsequentially. _Well, so am I!_

"I need to know what Sherlock is doing for you now. Where he is going. Why. What you are expecting of him. How you dare….." he stopped, could hear his voice cracking.

"I have given him no orders. I expect nothing of him. He expects it all of himself. Please be calm, Dr Watson."

Older, shorter, more emotional, certainly more pugnacious, she saw. Tough and determined, still very much a soldier. She was more acquainted with dealing with men like JohnWatson that she was a force of nature like Sherlock Holmes.

She watched Dr John Watson pull a deep breath and try to regain control. Not what she had expected. Older. Ordinary. Quite common, really. Not at all the sort of man she would have expected to have broken past the usually impregnable defences of Sherlock Holmes.

Until he looked up at her. Body tightly controlled, face a calm mask of steely resolve, until he looked levelly into her eyes.

And then she remembered he had been an army field surgeon. A captain, a leader of men. Decorated for bravery and wounded in action in Afghanistan. Who, even as a civilian, had killed without hesitation to save the life of Sherlock Holmes. And she revised her original dismissive opinion in a simple blink of the eyes.

"I am perfectly calm, Lady Smallwood. So stop pissing me off."

"Do not attempt to bludgeon me, Dr Watson. Better men than you have tried and failed."

"I am not intimidated, either. So that's us established. Punching toe to toe. Just tell me."

"It is very difficult to tell you what I do not know. I could make something up, of course, and how would you know the difference? That would help me, but not you. And certainly not Sherlock."

She paused to make an elegant gesture with her hand, to invite him to sit down. But he was tired of sitting down, so he ignored the unspoken invitation.

"I am, however, under precise instruction from Sherlock to tell you nothing. To forbid you from trying to help him. To encourage you to remain here in safety."

He almost shouted at her. He almost kicked her desk, the nearest chair, punched the wall. But he did none of those things. Because, he realised, what she had told him was exactly what he would have expected Sherlock Holmes to do.

And he bit back the impulse to say Mycroft Holmes had had the same instruction. But was defying that order. Was putting him on track and keeping him there.

"No chance, Lady Smallwood. No effing chance. I'm not the person who needs to be safe here. It's Sherlock who needs help. Sherlock who needs protection. And not even you are going to stop me."

He stared her down, strong dark eyes burning with anger and resolve. When she looked away he gave a brief nod, a small twist of his lips. He spun on his heel and left the office. Like an army officer, dismissed. Or dismissing.

o0o0o

He burst out of the building like a diver coming to the surface to gasp fresh air. And as he hesitated on the pavement, buffeted by pedestrians, feeling angry and disconnected, there was the chirp of a text on his mobile.

 _ **Ticket to be collected at Heathrow for Aalborg. Teatime flight. You will be met at Aalborg. Specifics to follow. MH**_

And again, within seconds:

 _ **You have time to see Mrs Susan Merchant. The car waiting for you across the road will take you there. MH**_

He looked up. A black Bentley. George Bradshaw at the wheel.

John Watson crossed the road to the car, trying to keep his anger at being manipulated yet again under tight control.

"Nice to see you. Wanted a word."

"Not now, Dr Watson. Please get in."

"Where are we going?"

No reply. And yet again John Watson sat back in a limousine with no idea where he was going, or why.

The car headed north west, through Wembley. Arrived at a Victorian brick building on Harrow On The Hill's High Street.

"Ask for Mrs Merchant at reception. I'll wait." he was told, and left the car to enter the cool elegance of a building that carried that indefinable smell of cabbage and polish and humanity that defined a school.

And in a small neat office he was introduced to Mrs Susan Merchant. Tall, self possessed, cropped grey hair, wearing a fashionable tweed suit and shoes with kitten heels.

"I understand you wish to speak to me," she said, standing to greet him, "I was a house matron here for many years. Just part time now, officially retired. Ask what you need to know."

John Watson thought rapidly.

"William Sherlock Scott Holmes," he said. "You remember him?"

"Sherlock? Of course. Once seen never forgotten."

She motioned him to sit, and this time he did so. A hard chair opposite her own.

"Tell me about him." He realised his voice sounded harsh, edgy. Manufactured a smile. "I am his colleague - write his professional blog. I am working…." he thought rapidly, "on his biography."

"That will be rich reading!" she exclaimed and smiled. Relaxed.

"I first met Sherlock when he arrived here as a pupil. Unusually he started here at the beginning of the spring term, after Christmas. He arrived a week late. He had been ill. Injured. I dressed his wounds. How I got to know him."

"Why was he late? What wounds?"

"Sometimes boys start that term late - trapped in the Swiss mountain ski resorts by snow, normally," she explained. "Sherlock had been elsewhere - south Asia, I think. Hurt in some sort of incident."

"What sort of incident?"

"He never really explained. Very taciturn when he wants to be. As no doubt you know. He was perfectly calm. But he carried injuries. Had already had dental work. Was undergoing a series of blood tests….."

"What for?"

"I don't know. He went to the hospital for those. They never appeared on his medical notes here. Mostly his poor wrists needed my attention. The cuts were very deep; had obviously been septic. I changed his dressings every day for almost three weeks. The scars receded in time. I presume they still show?"

"Yes. Did he ever say what caused them?"

"He said…there had been an accident. He had had the reins of a horse wrapped around his wrists, and he was dragged some distance when the horse bolted."

John Watson looked at her keenly.

"You didn't believe him."

"It was a good lie. But I used to ride horses. One of the first things you learn is never to wrap reins around your wrists, for safety. Reins are wider than shoelaces. And the cuts were so deep into the tissue of his wrists you could see the weave of the material that caused the damage. Reins never look like that, or made like that. I imagine you can still see that detail, even today?"

John Watson remembered the sight of those bared wrists reaching up to change a light bulb in 221B just three days earlier, remembered the sharp penetrating light that gave a forensic view of the damage Sherlock Holmes carried and normally hid away.

"Yes," he agreed. "Yes, they do." And, as if those words were torn from him. Then, more calmly: "What had happened to him?"

"He never explained. Perfectly polite, but totally self contained. Always, throughout his five years here. A brilliant boy, genius level intelligence. But not liked. Not that he ever cared." She shook her head in something between admiration and disbelief. John Watson recognised the feeling.

"His parents never visited; his father was very ill, I was told. He sometimes stayed here through school holidays. His older brother visited occasionally." She paused for a moment

"He didn't have friends. The cat that walked by himself. "

She looked up and smiled at him.

"Still the same, I suppose?" Her smile was sad and wise. "Whatever happened to him before he came here shaped him for life I think. Made him what he has become. He never confided in anyone, or talked about himself. Singular, special, but never a schoolboy. He passed through this place like the angry ghost of a genius. But I liked him."

"So do I, Mrs Merchant. And your information has been invaluable."

o0o0o

George Bradshaw directed the car back towards central London. Silently, without comment.

Eventually John Watson was compelled to slide back the courtesy window between back seat and driver, lean forward and say:

"It would be quicker and simpler if you just told me. "

Not my decision to make, sir," was the practised reply. " Mr Mycroft Holmes has set you on a particular course. And the truth is, we all only know our own parts of the whole. For the complete story you need all our perspectives. Or to get Mr Sherlock Holmes to tell you everything."

"Like that's gonna happen."

"Precisely. So this way is best. Hear your own tales. Draw your own conclusions."

John Watson thought for a moment.

"Sir Robert's version of events was scarily vague."

"Yes. The trauma blanked his memory. He was never successfully debriefed. Something of a fragile flower." Objective assessment, not judgmental.

"I don't understand - from what he said - how they survived, fought off the attack for so long. How Mr Holmes survived the shooting. It doesn't make sense. "

"Think about it," Bradshaw advised in a neutral voice.

John Watson sat and looked at the back of George Bradshaw's neck and prayed for inspiration; knowing the journey, and the conversation, would soon be over.

"You were Mr Holmes' bodyguard. You knew Sherlock."

"I taught him things he wanted to learn. Things his parents did not want him to learn. They wanted him to be a brain. Just a brain. Detached from humanity by his intelligence. " He didn't say 'like Mycroft.' He didn't have to. A glance back at John Watson through the rear view miurror was enough.

"I taught him to shoot. Handguns, rifles, more. First aid, fighting skills. How to use that rare intelligence of his. Mrs Holmes objected. But the boy wanted to learn his own way. And he was all on his own, in more ways than one. Always."

"Why did you go after him? Why did you never give up? Two weeks is a long time to be tracking someone….."

"He was worth it. He always has been. So you think about it."

o0o0o

And now, here he was. In Aalborg's Utzen Centre, waiting for a concert to begin.

He had flown to Copenhagen on the ticket Mycroft arranged for him, 0n to the brief connecting flight to Aalborg. Was met outside by a taciturn, unsmiling young man who introduced himself as Matti Anker but did not explain who he was or who he worked for.

From an elderly blue Saab he deposited John Watson at an ultra modern hotel facing the Limnfjord, the city's main waterway.

He also presented him with a ticket to a concert that evening, a map guide to the city, a slip of paper with a telephone number on it, and an oilskin pouch containing a Beretta .22 revolver and two full magazine clips.

"We assumed you would not attempt to get your Sig through Customs," he explained briefly.

"Who are 'we'? " John Watson asked. "Who are you?"

"People who help Sherlock. I am just staff." A thin, bloodless smile, "Trust us. Everything is planned. Hr Doktor. Mr Holmes has arrived in Aalborg via Charles de Gaulle and Flughafen Hamburg, making the pretence of a stealthy approach here.

"He will arrive at rehearsal room seven of the Musikkens Hus, the Music House, shortly. You may wish to observe? An all areas pass is arranged for you. A ticket for a concert this evening.

"You also have an emergency telephone number. Use it without hesitation."

And then he was gone. John Watson found his room, consulted the map, slipped the Beretta into his jacket and headed towards the futuristic Utzen Centre further along the harbourside.

The regeneration in this industrial city was remarkable, and the shiny modern buildings that had replaced the defunct ship yards and wharves were attractively minimalist.

In the new navy duffle coat and overlarge butcher boy cap Mary had bough him for Christmas, and which Sherlock had never seen, he was confident in his invisibility, and had enjoyed a coffee in the busy foyer of the concert hall before he spotted Sherlock, an unmistakeable silhouette in the Belstaff, striding quickly towards a side entrance.

Approaching the rehearsal room from a different direction, thanks to his pass, he saw Sherlock again - entering rehearsal room seven - and rushed forward to peer through it's tiny window even as the soundproof door swung shut.

Watched, stunned, as a slight blonde girl with a violin, apparently teaching a class, broke off to greet him. Looking both surprised and delighted, she put down the violin and ran towards him, to throw herself into his arms.

Instead of rebuffing the girl with his usual physical withdrawal and tart comment, John Watson was amazed to see the consulting detective catch her, laughing. Swing her into the air and effortlessly around until she was giggling and breathless. When he put her down onto her feet to wrap her in his arms and kiss her soundly. The dozen students in the room applauded.

John Watson could not believe his eyes. Touching? Hugging? Kissing? Kissing a girl with eagerness and every appearance of pleasure? _Sherlock?_

He stepped back. This was a Sherlock Holmes he had never seen before! Irritation flared. Had he ever known the real man? Had he returned from death a different man? And was everything he thought he knew about Sherlock Holmes a lie?

And if so - who was the real person he was trying to find? And why was he bothering if the real Sherlock was something else altogether?

He wished to God Mycroft Holmes had never set him on this road.

He consciously stepped back from what he had just seen. Retraced his steps, found a quiet spot in the chilly plaza outside. Pulled out his mobile and dialled the number on the slip of paper.

Two rings and a male Danish voice asked:

" _Hej? Hvem er det?"_

John Watson did not understand the language, and was for a second silent, tongue tied. Frustrated by his lack of foresight.

"Hello? Who is that?" the voice repeated in English. A decisive baritone voice, clear, well modulated.

"Er….I've been given your number….?"

There was the briefest of pauses.

"What can I do for you, Doctor Watson? "

"Nothing. Yet. Thanks. Just…checking you are there, I suppose."

"Always here. Alert and on guard." There was a burr of humour in the confident voice.

"Who are you?"

"A friend of Sherlock's. And at his back. Yours too. Relax."

The call was ended.

John Watson went back inside to find food. And think dark thoughts.

o0o0o

The small performance hall was full. Musicians, students, fans. Everyone who had attended the violin master class before the interval had returned for Alyssa Almedova's informal performance of the violin pieces the class had been centred on - Elgar's Salut D'Amour and Paganini's Caprices 24. John Watson read all this from the duplicated sheet that would have been social climbing to have called itself a programme.

As the music played he recognised the pieces from Classic FM radio and one as the theme music for The South Bank Show, had been surprisingly captivated by the warm yet detailed talk and masterclass from the star violinist.

 _Of course Sherlock was in a relationship with a violinist! What else should he expect? But the alarm bells continued to ring gently behind his ears; there was something not right here, not true. He was sure of it. As sure as he could be when dealing with Sherlock Holmes._

So he watched, and concentrated. The students from earlier were relaxed and enthusiastic, and the slight Russian girl who had thrown herself into Sherlock's arms and was their teacher, proved charming and self possessed, despite her youth. A charismatic teacher, fluent in English, and the audience warmed to her.

From his place in the far corner of the back row, he could see Sherlock in the centre of the front row. Tall, erect, motionless. Relating to no-one except the girl performing and leading the public masterclass.

How did he know her? Because of the violin? Musically? Or socially? Had he simply come to Denmark to see her? Or as a ruse to mix business with pleasure? Was she his girlfriend? He had never seen Sherlock with a girlfriend before. Well, not unless Janine counted.

But wooing Janine had been a means to an end, Magnussen's personal assistant had been a bridesmaid at John and Mary Watson's wedding. Who had been attracted to Sherlock, the best man. And whose closeness and courting was revealed to have been for the case alone. So Sherlock had form.

But Alyssa Almedova….was she herself a case? Sherlock had never mentioned her in relation to a case. Any case. Part of the Baldissi case? Yet with her, Sherlock did not look as if he was investigating. …well….anything.

He had greeted her earlier as if romantically connected. It looked easy and relaxed and mutual. Yet to John Watson the ease and the closeness of it just did not look like Sherlock Holmes. And had he not known Sherlock Holmes better than anyone?

And who was the man on the end of the telephone? Who was Matti, the driver? Who had so casually provided a sidearm?

Sherlock had never described what had happened during those long weeks spent recuperating in Denmark from the bullet Mary Watson had put in his chest and which had almost ended his life.

John Watson had been too embarrassed about the shooting, and why Sherlock arrived in Denmark in the first place, to ask. And Sherlock, as usual, had volunteered nothing. Their meeting on the tiny island where Sherlock had recuperated -an alien, unapproachable hermit - had been fraught and pushed too many boundaries: John Watson had vowed never to approach that secret part of his best friend ever again.

Yet now…now he was seeing another Sherlock. Tactile, expressive, effusive. Was this - finally - the real Sherlock he was observing? The Sherlock Mycroft had tasked him to discover?

Or was this another construct? A construct the like of which Sherlock's own mother had warned him against? Not for the first time he felt lost and vulnerable and despairing in the face of the complex and unknowable creature that was Sherlock Holmes.

File that for later, he thought. Everything in the moment was about being here, and about now, the affectionate looks the Russian girl kept giving Sherlock Holmes as she talked and taught and played; and how Sherlock spotted those looks, inclined his head slightly in response, and gave every impression of a man in love in return.

Perhaps their love of music, their shared musicianship, linked them in a different emotional and instinctive way, John Watson thought, something more than the purely animal sex appeal that had attracted Janine to Sherlock?

And although John Watson knew Sherlock was a sublime actor, was there more here with Alyssa than there had been with Janine? No cold eyes when he thought no-one was looking. No verbal clichés or artificial smiles. Just total concentration and absorption. On her words and on her music.

So John Watson sat and watched and worried, yet was still taught and entertained, despite himself. And hoped his best friend still had no idea he was there. He was following, he reminded himself. Not accompanying. And all expressly against Sherlock's wishes.

Eventually the Russian girl lifted the bow from her violin. The music stopped and the applause began. She opened her arms graciously and inclined her head in tribute to her audience, then reached out a hand to Sherlock, summoning him to her side.

So now he stepped forward to and join her on the stage and brushed his fingers against her lips as he took her hand. Smiled warmly at Alyssa, at the audience he had also just charmed, proud and relaxed. And utterly unlike himself.

John Watson remembered his awkward reluctance at police press briefings, his distaste for presentations and public thanks, his reluctance and displeasure at the speeches the gifts, the praise, his total discomfort with public recognition that had nothing to do with modesty but all to do with irrelevance and disdain. And he simply did not recognise the man in front of him as the same person he had once shared a flat and cases and danger with.

And wondered again what he was doing here in Aalborg, in a classical music concert hall. If not chasing shadows.

"Thank you for being such an appreciative audience," the Russian girl said. "And I also want to publicly thank this man -" she leant lovingly towards Sherlock. "For without him, none of us would be here. Because just a few days ago he stopped robbers taking my beloved Guarneri violin. And saved me from injury. My dear friend, Mr Sherlock Holmes."

The applause became louder. Slowly the audience came to their feet, gave Alyssa Almedova and Sherlock Holmes a standing ovation. He bowed, smiled warnly, drew the girl into his side.

He looked back across the audience….and his eyes met those of John Watson. It might have been the lighting, but John Watson thought he spotted a tiny nod and smile, the slightest gesture to draw him forward.

As much as he was dismayed at being spotted, part of him was relieved. They were better together; and not secretly following was better, more honest…..

His feet took him forward. Sherlock's head went back, tilted, impelled him towards the stage. He whispered something to the Russian violinist, who nodded, smiled and looked at John Watson to encourage him up onto the stage.

He reluctantly mounted the shallow steps. realised something was wrong. Suddenly Sherlock Holmes' eyes were blank with something that might have been anger, his face a stern mask.

"What in hell are you doing here? Howe many times do I have to tell you to stop haunting me? Don't come near me, don't follow where I go to try to speak to me. Our partnership is over! Leave me alone!"

Two steps forward. Anger pouring off him. He had boxed at school John Watson recalled. A brief mental picture of him milling in front of the Golem….swapping blows in a Belgravia mews….

' _I always hear 'punch me' when you're talking….'_

By the time he realised he needed to take avoiding action - _take it! Take it now! -_ a vicious right hook had lifted him off his feet, and backwards off the very edge of the stage.

As he crashed down, spangles of pain flashing before his eyes, he thought that blow was too much. Too much! At least the stage was shallow, and the drop would be short. Oh! And try not to land on the bad shoulder! 'Cos this is going to hurt!

His last sight was his best friend's furious face, his set shoulders and clenched fists. Then, for however long it took, the world went black.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's Notes:**

Holmes family diplomatic service: High level public service throughout generations of one family is traditional in England. This background is supported by Mycroft's rapid rise through the ranks to hold such a high yet unspecified role as 'the British Government' at his relatively young age, not to mention his MI5 and 6 and CIA connections Sherlock references in _A Study In Pink._. This is also reflected in similar lengthy diplomatic and military service of the Cumberbatch family that can be traced via it's family history website.

Siward and Mignonette Holmes: Siward is an unusual but ancient English name, derived from the ACD original canon name Siger (used by Sherlock as a pseudonym) It's connection to European and Nordic myth seems appropriate. It is a name better known as Siegfried, who kills the dragon Fafnir in Wagner's operatic Ring Cycle. Fafnir's legend relates directly to the story of Smaug in _The Hobbit._

Although much fan fiction names Mycroft and Sherlock's mother as Violet due to ACD canon connection, the book presented towards the end of Sherlock S3 Ep3 _His Last Vow_ as written by their mother is called _The Theory Of Combustion_ with the author named on the front cover as M L Holmes.

The historical family name Vernet appears in _The Abominable Bride_ , so a French first name is appropriate to canon. And with the silver blonde hair shared by Mrs Holmes and her alter ego Wanda Ventham, Mignonette was a logical name of choice. Midge is a recognised short form, and a common nickname within the social echelon of the Holmes family.

Danish _politiet_ : Danish national police force

 _Politiets Aktionsstyrke_ : Special forces section of the Danish police.

 _Polkitiets Efterretningstjeneste:_ Danish police national security intelligence agency

Savoy Hotel doorman Chris Walsh: first appears in O'Donnell Christmas short story, _How, Still, We See Thee Lie_. He will reappear!

Sri Lankan Space Agency: Works closely with Chinese technology and anticipates sending a manned space flight by 2025.

'The Cat That Walked By Himself:' From one of Rudyard Kipling's _Just So_ stories.(1902) His watchword is 'I am the cat that walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.'

His 'walking by his wild lone' character is very appropriate for Sherlock Holmes.


	10. Chapter 10

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 10

 _It is the fate of glass to break._

 _(Old French proverb)_

He staggered back to his feet, fighting through the chairs he had scattered as he landed on the ground below the stage, and decided that he was hurting. Also angry, embarrassed, surprised, humiliated, betrayed….but above all - challenged. Seriously challenged.

 _And what else was life with Sherlock Holmes in it?_

Oh! And how many times had he asked himself that question before? And why did he never learn?

Sherlock Holmes turned away from him immediately he threw the punch, took the Russian girl by the wrist and strode from the stage into the wings without a backwards glance.

John Watson watched him go, nursing his jaw. Not quite believing what had happened to him; not quite registering anything but the pain in his face and his heart. Not quite believing…..

 _Thinkthinkthinkthinkthink…_

Sherlock Holmes did make such public displays of himself. Did not - despite all appearances to the contrary - lose or abandon his self control. Did not give way to impulse, show true emotional anger. He did not, above all and everything, strike his best friend and partner in crime. Not ever. Not….really.

 _So why had he done that now? In public? Unless there was a very good reason? The very same reason Sherlock Holmes had looked into his eyes without anything at all showing in his own. Not irritation, not surprise nor even recognition. Yet he had shown anger. Expressed it. For whatever reason, whatever trigger._

So John Watson decided to ride with the blow, to play up and play the game. And realised with sudden confidence that this was another great game, albeit a different one.

"You bastard! You hit me! You'll pay for that!"

The man he had once thought he knew better than himself did not break stride nor even appear to hear. Only the girl following in his wake looked back; a look of shock and sympathy. Or something like it.

A thickset, dark young man who had been sitting on the front row bent down and helped him to his feet.

"Are you all right?" he asked in English, with a distinct accent John Watson did not recognise. His eyes and hair were very dark; a Mediterranean heritage, then. In fey fair Denmark the man looked exotic and strikingly handsome.

"Yes. Thanks." He stood up, brushed the dust from the floor off his coat, offered a slight, uncomprehending smile. It was not all acting. "More surprised than anything."

"I assume you know Mr Holmes? Whether he normally does that sort of thing?"

The question seemed pointed rather than polite, something lingering behind the eyes, John Watson thought.

"He is very eccentric and seriously unpredictable, but….not normally, no." John Watson manufactured an expression that could be read as guilty, apologetic or embarrassed, deserving of his fate. "I used to be his partner. His business partner." He crunched up his face and let the young man read there what he may. Let him think they had had some professional or personal disagreement that had broken their connection.

 _And we had, hadn't we? We have, haven't we? How can I find my way back home…?_

Let him, let everyone, think Sherlock was angry, unprepared to repair their relationship. And had just made that resolution known as publicly as possible. And he realised something within him was not surprised by that.

"Ah. I see. My apologies, I did not mean to intrude on your….." he sought a word, came up with "…situation." He stepped back. "Is there anything I may do for you?"

"No. Thank you." He took a step away, then halted. "Why would you think you should need to?"

"My name is Marco de Bono. I am Alyssa Almedova's manager. Perhaps I feel a little responsible for Mr Holmes' behaviour."

"Do you? Why?" The interest was sharp and genuine; he tried to flatten his response, not panic the man into silence.

"We had what you might call a free and frank exchange of words earlier. I think it might have upset him."

John Watson grinned inside, then. Tried not to let that show.

 _Definitely a ploy, then. Most definitely a plan._

"Not your problem, honestly. He has that effect on people. I had hoped to talk to Sherlock, but I can see that is a waste of time. I'll go. But thanks anyway."

He left the small concert hall, ignoring the curious looks of the few stragglers, the last of the audience to leave, who had seen that flash of Sherlock's reaction.

Outside the concert hall he melted into the departing crowds, ducked behind a hoarding and waited. Silent in the shadows. No-one had followed him. No-one was running to catch him up.

He waited. Would wait until he saw Sherlock. Until he could follow him again. And find out what was going on..

o0o0o

So much going on. So much to organise before he arrived in Denmark.

Sherlock Holmes adjusted the bag on his shoulder, crossing London, heading for the tube and Heathrow to catch his train. Took out his phone. Started to text.

o0o0o

 **Reply: In Aalborg. Alerted. Later. PB**

o0o0o

 **Reply: Attack under investigation, no lead. Debrief? Bed, tea? CR**

o0o0o

 **Reply: Yes, come! Wonderful to see you, my Azrael! Until then. Your Alyssa.**

O0o0o

And a telephone call.

"How are you?"

"Absolutely fine. My masseuse said I should make the most of this, because this would probably be the last chance I would ever have to have peace and quiet all on my own. So I thought about it, decided she was right, and now that is exactly what I am doing!"

Mary Watson's voice was bubbly with laughter and good health, and for a moment Sherlock Holmes felt completely off balance.

 _What am I doing? This is what the real world should be - happy and relaxed. Easy._

 _Totally boring!_

"At this very moment I am lying back and having a pedicure."

"I don't even know what that means," he said dismissively, allowing a whinge into his voice, then smiling to himself when he achieved a giggle from her in response.

"Poor soul!" she laughed back at him. And then sobered.

"How are you? How is John?"

"I am fine. John is fine. We had a meal at Angelo's last night. I left him fast asleep, having a lie-in."

 _Well, that's the truth. And what she doesn't know won't hurt her._

"What are you doing?"

"This and that. Finding intel. Getting background."

"The truth now, Sherlock."

He hadn't fooled her; she always said she knew when he was fibbing; or being economical with the truth.

"I am going to Denmark. Without John. He doesn't need to be there, and what he doesn't know won't hurt him. Just a couple more days, Mary, and then this should be over. Then you can come home."

"I am safe here, Sherlock," her voice was low, the sincerity palpable. It made him flinch, screw up his eyes as he walked. A luxury, as no-one who knew him could see him do it.

"Security is strong, this place is efficient and peaceful. You chose well. My time here should not be a pressure on you, not as far as I am concerned."

"Yes. Thank you." He paused. Tried to stop the timbre of his voice changing. "Mary. It is possible I may not return from this. So I need you to promise something."

"Anything. Go on."

There was an unusual and untypical pause.

"Look after him for me. If I die a second time…I mean…properly this time…. he must have someone to turn to."

"I promised you that before. At the airfield. You know it anyway. I'm not reneging on that promise. I never would. I love him."

"I know."

"I love you too."

"Don't."

He instantly ended the call even as he heard her start to reply. Took the Tube. Travelled onwards. Flew to Paris and then Hamburg, a torturous route to Aalborg, a pretence at disguising his final destination, that he already knew Baldissi was there. To look cautious, not obvious.

Alert to being followed, unsure where his trail would be picked up - or who by. The airport was logical. There were Harry Baldwin cousins still unidentified - Danish Italians? Mafia gofers. Magnussen underlings and functionaries. Connections that linked a new generation of de Bono's to a new generation of Baldissi's. Mafia family connections ran long and deep. It could be anyone. With Baldissi already in Aalborg - who knew what he was planning?

Investigate, be ready and alert. Bring the hawk to the lure, distract dangerous young Harry Baldwin from all his other targets so all he could see, all he could focus on, before his eyes and within touching distance, taunting him, was Sherlock Holmes.

Well. That was the theory.

He was self absorbed during his journey. There was a bubble of something at the base of his throat always threatening to rise, and that something was fear. He didn't do fear. Did not admit to it. Allow it in.

But he had gone through too much over the past two weeks. Even for him. And he knew it. Christmas, murder, attack, imprisonment. Justice and punishment denied, a suicide mission abandoned, a drug overdose of epic proportions. Another task to undertake against an unexpected and unpredictable foe who had too much advantage, and had already defiled too much of the hidden part of him.

This time there were too many people to protect. This time it was just too personal. This time it was a campaign focussed against him alone - the murderer - yet planned to make others suffer on his behalf. The burden of this knowledge was almost too much to bear. And Baldissi knew that.

Logic was taking him to Aalborg. Revenge had turned on the remaining Magnussen brothers first; and there were others in Denmark to target. But he knew both opening Magnussen attacks had merely been feints, to tease and frighten. The next hits would be more serious. And he must be there to foil them.

Carving letters into Johan Magnussen's forehead had been childishly evil - and spiteful - warning. The attack on Alyssa Almedova and the attempt to steal the Holderness Guaneri violin had been more calculating and had been foiled, and he had foiled it.

And yet…there was something else. He knew it. Was Alyssa victim, conspirator or sacrificial lamb? Was the violin a real target or a distraction? And where was Marco de Bono in this?

Was his family part of Enrico Baldissi's Mafia connection? Or was he an innocent who just looked guilty? Was there any Mafia connection at all? And who was Alfredo Catalani? His role in this complicated game of posture and peril?

Aalborg would give the answers. When he pushed the Almedova connection and tested it: when he faced the girl and her manager. When he plumbed their reactions and emotions.

Visit Johan Magnussen, wait for Pedder. Triangulate intelligence with Piet Bruhl. Follow Christina Ravn's investigation of the attack on Johan, locate Baldissi.

Harry Baldwin had truly become Enrico Baldissi. And Enrico Baldissi was finding it too easy to disappear, both in London and Denmark. Someone must be helping him. Shielding him. But Sherlock Holmes did not know who. Not yet. And he disliked not knowing.

At least, he thought, as he journeyed north and east, at least Mary and Baby Watson were safe. Thanks to his own drugs John Watson was also safe and sleeping at home, with no idea where he was or how to find him.

 _Don't be angry with me, John! Well….no angrier than normal! Stay asleep and comfortable and safe. This is not your problem to solve. It is mine. Not your job to keep me safe any more. Keeping Mary safe, and the baby: that is your job now._

 _Any misery and any mistakes are mine, and mine alone. Mine to put right alone. Stand back, John, stay clear. Just let me do this thing. End it as quickly as possible. Not be distracted by you. Stay away from me, John._

 _You won't like it. You won't understand what I am about to do. Another reason for keeping you out of this. You think you know me so well, and think I would never do this. But I have told you before. I will do anything to win. Did you hear me then? Hear me now? Know exactly what that means?_

 _So don't look._

o0o0o

The soundproof door squeaked as he opened it. And again as he closed it. The intrusion sounded above the music being made, and fourteen faces turned towards him. Twelve blank, slightly quizzical. One stormy and critical. The other…..

"My Azrael! You are here! I never thought…..!"

She had put the violin down and run into his arms before he really registered what she was going to do and was doing it. She ran towards him, the length of the room, scattering her students before her, and launched herself into his arms.

He caught her automatically, a reactive sort of self preservation, and drew her to him in a movement that was as much her own physical impetus as his reaction. He felt himself quiver with something like shock or sex or delight or revulsion, then pulled himself together.

 _I will do this. Secrets and sex and availability. This is bringing the hawk to the lure. Remember that. Touch. Contact._

Smiled charmingly down at her as if she was the only person in the universe, tightened his arms around her and bent his head to kiss her, apparently heedless of the encouraging whistles and catcalls from the class.

Lowering her to the ground he kept his lips on hers - mouth subtly shifting, tongue teasing - until she breathed a soft laugh into his mouth and broke away, a little excited, a little flustered.

"A charming welcome," he said, softly, but not too softly to be heard around the room.

She blushed.

"Sherlock. My _choknuttyj,_ " she laughed up into his face, as flustered by her own action as his reaction. "I forget myself."

"Beautifully so," he agreed in his best seductive purr. Took her hand, kissed her fingertips. "You asked me to come, So here I am."

As if suddenly aware of the rapt attention of the students - but in an entirely different way to before he came - she waved a hand vaguely at them.

"He is a violinist," she said in lame excuse. Blushed endearingly as her students laughed. So he took a little pity upon her. Lifted her Guarneri to his shoulder and trilled a little Paganini pizzicato with his fingers without even looking what he was doing; coat still on, bag still settled on his shoulders. Busking it.

In a roomful of top class violinists he had made his point in seconds without even speaking. Was thus instantly accepted within the group, within the room.

"You have been travelling, Sherlock? Perhaps you would like the chance to freshen up and have coffee while Alyssa continues her class?"

Marco de Bono's intervention was smooth. Sherlock Holmes looked across at him and nodded slowly. There were words to be shared in private now. Words not for the Russian girl's ears.

So he relinquished the Guarneri to it's true partner, withdrew from the back of the stage to a ripple of applause from the pupils.

In the workaday backstage space the two men faced each other. Marco de Bono pulled his eyes away first, gestured vaguely towards double doors.

"Coffee then?" he said awkwardly and led the way to the Green Room; empty save for a single waitress behind the counter, who presented hot drinks and pastries on a tray de Bono carried to a corner and sat down.

Sherlock Holmes sat opposite him. Cool and poised. Waiting.

"What are you doing here?"

"Alyssa invited me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Have you thought of asking her?"

"I'm not sure she would tell me."

"You are her manager."

"And that's all."

"Not my fault. Not my problem."

There was a moment's silence, a pause for mutual assessment.

"She is very young," de Bono said. "Has had a sheltered life because of her musical gift. Is very open hearted."

"Yes, she is. Which makes her charming and attractive."

"And easy to take advantage of."

"I am the last person to take advantage of her."

"Really? I see you with her and it sickens me. You are rich. Handsome and powerful. Her hero because you saved her - and her treasured violin - from thieves." He paused, waited for Sherlock Holmes to be offended and angry. Which did not happen. So another prod.

"Did you set that up yourself? To become her hero? Wrap her round your little finger?"

"Why would I?"

"I don't know! You might be a manic fan, an ambitious musician, a scheming potential lover! Anything!"

Sherlock absorbed that easily and riposted with a new strike.

"Why was she alone on Waterloo Bridge so late at night?"

"Admiring the view…."

"No. She was waiting for someone. Waiting for you?"

"Why me?"

"You exhibit symptoms of a jealous lover. So I could make the same accusations back at you. Did you plan to seduce her? Steal the Guarneri for yourself? Blackmail Alyssa?"

"You're mad! Arrogant and…."

"Heard all that before. Boring. And I wouldn't want the violin for myself. I have my own Guarneri. ….."

"What? Alyssa said as much, but I thought she was just talking you up…..?"

"No. She has seen it. Played it. My Guarneri has been in my family for generations. It is known as the Vernet Guarneri. After my great grandfather, who left it to my mother, who gave it to me. A matter of record." He paused. "So why was Alyssa on the bridge? Waiting?"

De Bono conceded the issue.

"I got a telephone message while she was on stage. Someone from her sponsors wanted to meet her, but was delayed. If he did not arrive for the reception afterwards, could she meet him later, on Waterloo Bridge? I asked her, she agreed. She thought it sounded romantic." He shook his head.

"Who was it? A name, Marco!"

"I had no name. Just a telephone message."

"Sounds feeble. Not necessarily true, and you have no proof."

"How dare you say that? "

"Your name is de Bono. I know all about the Maltese Mafia connections of the de Bono family, the Messinas. Has that anything to do with your manipulation of Alyssa?"

Marco de Bono leant across the table, grabbed Sherlock Holmes by the lapels of his coat and flung him across the room. The taller man hit the opposite wall and was immediately back on his feet. Standing tall, and smiling, waving away the waitress rushing to his aid.

"Nothing to worry about," she said with quiet assurance. "Just a little misunderstanding. Artistic temperament, you know."

And calmly sat back down.

"Sit down, Marco, and start behaving like an adult. Instead of a guilty man in denial of himself and his own motives."

"You are a total bastard."

"Told that before. So are you in the Mafia, like the rest of your family? Or are you trying to prove you are pure as the driven snow?"

"You are so clever, work it out for yourself," he breathed.

Got up and walked away.

o0o0o

John Watson stood quietly, resting invisibly in the shadows, waiting for Sherlock Holmes to reappear He did not have long to wait, had barely gathered his thoughts, when the side door burst open. Sherlock and Alyssa hand in hand, moving swiftly and furtively…..

He put his hand into his pocket for the comforting touch of the Beretta. In case it was needed, In case he was needed. Huffed a gasp of surprise and frustration when their urgent movement merely put them into a dark angle of the building before they slammed together in a quick and urgent kiss of heat and passion.

She had her arms around him, hands clasped high behind his head, pressing herself tightly to him as his hands grasped her sides and lifted her into his lips. Watson could not suppress the twist of something like disgust and embarrassment that crossed his face as he watched.

He mentally shook himself at his reaction. He was neither a prude nor an innocent. He was no voyeur either…..but this was Sherlock Holmes! A man he had known for years, a man who professed to have no heart, no emotion of his own, who abhorred and scorned emotion in others.

Yet here he was: caressing a young woman possessively, irresistibly. Passionately, even. And she was kissing him back as if her hunger for him could not be sated.

So John Watson kept looking. Watched as Sherlock lowered the slight girl back onto her feet, cupped that gamine face in his long pale hands and whispered words urgently. Love? Promise? Assignation?

He was too far away to hear, and cursed the distance between them.

Marco de Bono sprang through the side door, looked round wildly, spotted the couple in their corner just as they saw him, and leapt apart.

Sharp words from the shorter man as he reached out for the hands Sherlock had just dropped, and sprung away from. The usual arrogance was replaced by placatory words, a distinct backing away. Whatever Marco de Bono said was scathing - John Watson could recognise the tone if not the individual words - and he saw Sherlock allow the manager to lead his violin virtuoso away.

For a moment Sherlock Holmes simply stood and watched them go. Then he dipped a hand into a coat pocket, produced a packet and gold lighter, bent his head to light a cigarette.

The expression the flare of the match illuminated on that patrician face moved from something like lust to cold calculation. It chilled the watcher who still liked to think of himself as Sherlock Holmes' best friend.

Watched his best friend take two hard drags on the cigarette and stride away at speed.

From the direction he was taking Watson knew where he would be heading. Studying the city map, he had established the two addresses Mycroft Holmes had given him were in opposite parts of the city: one a white painted apartment block almost within sight of the Utzon Centre itself, the other on the edge of the city centre's mediaeval quarter.

And that was where Sherlock must be heading now. So Watson ran towards the main road behind the Utzon onto Nyhavnsgade, waved down a taxi, and was quickly delivered to the address. A tiny half timbered cottage on a narrow cobbled street that reminded him eerily of a similar part of Norwich. He found himself a recessed doorway fifty yards further along the street in a convenient pool of darkness and stepped backwards into his niche.

The little lane was quiet, and late night strollers few, so when footsteps were heard approaching, Watson recognised the familiar tread.

Sherlock Holmes was walking down the centre of the road, making no attempt at concealment, and went unerringly to the oak door of the cottage. The four raps on the knocker seemed impossibly loud, and the door was opened quickly.

A shadowy figure in denims and blue hoodie pulled low over the face, fists in pockets, slipped out of the door and was away so quickly it could have been a ghost. John Watson barely noticed, all concentration on Sherlock.

Another man appeared in the lighted doorway, one hand holding the door. Sherlock said something very quietly and the man stepped forward, light behind him from inside showing a dark silhouette. But Watson saw a man older but shorter than Sherlock, with broad shoulders, a compact sturdy figure, unmistakeable military bearing.

 _He looks like me, John Watson thought, shocked Darker hair, squarer face, taller and stronger. Clearly an officer and a gentleman. But. A lot. Like me._

Watched in something between horror and disbelief as Sherlock lifted his hands, captured the man's face between them, stepped forward and drew the two of them together, body tight pressed to body, kissing the other man deeply and with something that looked like both passion and desperation.

The other man yielded as if shocked for mere seconds, then pulled back, dragged his mouth away.

"Good lord, Sherlock!"

 _He knows him, then! Who is this man? Boyfriend? Lover? A relationship that began when Sherlock was here in Denmark, convalescing from being shot by Mary? Someone known for years? A relationship Sherlock had hidden? Who? And why?_

 _How had he never known? Known this was Sherlock? This really was Sherlock?_

The other man took Sherlock Holmes by the biceps and pushed him away to look up into the younger man's face.

"You have hunger," John Watson heard the other man say. It was not a question but a statement.

There was no reply, but the man quietly raised a hand and rested it softly on Sherlock Holmes' face, a gentle curve around the jaw and over a sharp cheekbone.

"Come inside. Let me see what I can do for you."

And John Watson looked on in something like amazement as Sherlock Holmes stepped inside and the door closed behind him.

After a few moments of stunned reaction he found he had a hand clamped over his mouth. Froze as footsteps passed the cottage, slowed a little, and walked by. A young man in a dark trench coat, collar flipped high. John Watson ducked his head, confident that in his dark blue coat and hat he was invisible in his dark corner.

Listened to the footsteps recede in the darkness, paralysed in what felt like betrayal as much as shock. Which was a ridiculous way to feel! There had never been anything like that between them.

He wanted to confront Sherlock. He wanted to talk to Mycroft. He wanted to be a fly on the wall inside that little cottage. He wanted to know what was going on, what he was meant to be finding out. However much it hurt. Because here in Denmark he did not like what he was finding, what he was experiencing. So, unsure and indecisive, he waited.

Within thirty minutes the door opened again. Sherlock emerged. He was still shrugging himself into his coat and jacket, most shirt buttons undone. John Watson's stomach turned over.

What had gone on in the house in that brief time could not have been more obvious. And the younger man who had disappeared into the night as Sherlock arrived? Who was he? What had he been doing?

The older man patted Sherlock on the shoulder, squeezed his hand.

"Take care of yourself," he said briefly, and closed the door.

Sherlock Holmes turned and began to walk towards John Watson, and for one moment of rising panic, he thought he had been seen. But Sherlock merely strode past, within inches of his hiding place, and Watson could smell whisky on him, see wet and scraped back hair.

 _Swift sex and a shower was it? And a drink or two to see him on his way?_

 _This was madness!_

 _Was this really Sherlock Holmes he was following, or was this some sort of body double? A man who looked like Sherlock, dressed and moved like Sherlock….but did everything Sherlock did not do? Touch and vulnerability and sex….male and female alike?_

He was aware, just like in all the cheap novels, that his head was spinning and he felt queasy. As if he wanted to unsee what he had just seen; unlearn everything he had learnt in the past two days.

Watching, but giving Sherlock plenty of time to get ahead of him, he knew where he was heading now; to the other address Mycroft had given him, to the fourth floor apartment close to the Utzon Centre.

Somehow he again managed to reach the building first, and found himself a new hiding place in a small triangular area beneath a set of stairs.

Again, he listened for the sound of Sherlock's footsteps approaching, and again he watched as Sherlock knocked upon a door.

A tall woman, almost as tall as Sherlock himself, opened it. She wore a black dressing gown over mannish striped pyjamas, incongruous pink fluffy slippers on her feet, and in her hand she held a glass of wine.

"You're late," she said in greeting. "I had gone to bed."

A tumble of long dark hair, dark eyes, high cheekbones to match Sherlock's own.

They did not kiss, and she did not even reach out and touch him. But her quiet words carried to the hiding place.

"Bed," she said. "You look terrible."

He did not reply, simply put one hand on a shoulder, and let her draw him inside. As he passed her he put his forehead to hers in a rare gesture of trust and appreciation.

And then they were inside. All dark and silent again in the empty walkway

John Watson sighed the sigh of a disillusioned man and settled himself more comfortably. Tried to make sense of what he had seen this evening.

And reflected this could be a long cold night to come.

o0o0o

He made a show of punching John Watson as quickly and as hard as he could, watched him fly off the edge of the stage, turning away and checking with his peripheral vision that John Watson had landed safely. He could reassuringly hear the doctor now in his best shouting soldier mode. Tried not to smile.

He grasped Alyssa's hand, strode off the stage and hoped he had done enough to deflect and protect.

"Sherlock? What was that about?"

Once backstage she turned to him, more in curiosity than fear.

"My past got up and bit me. Not important," he said dismissively. Then: "I told you I was no angel."

"And that, my _choknuttyj_ , is why you are so irresistible."

He could not decide whether to admire her nerve or commiserate on her naivety. His eyes met those of Marco de Bono, and for a second her feared he himself was going to be thumped in turn.

"That ruined the day," de Bono said with deliberate flatness. "And it had been going so well."

"Nonsense! A little fillip for the audience to remember her by. A great marketing ploy, Marco."

She swept them both into her dressing room, heedless of the tension, happy and high on the events of the day. The violin went into it's backpack, which she handed to her manager, and she grabbed her coat; and Sherlock's hand.

"I have to go, _moya krasavista,"_ he said regretfully - my beautiful girl. "I have work to do."

"And she has to sleep. Sleep alone. For there is another busy day tomorrow."

Marco was stern, but she laughed in his face, spun through the door and down the corridor despite his protesting cry, tugging Sherlock Holmes after her. He complied, but once out of the side door and into the cool fresh air spun her to a stop - it would not do for her to be too far from Marco's watchful eye - and stilled her laughter and her movement by trapping her between his arms against the wall and kissing her.

 _Human it is, then. Is this what you do? Is this what people like?_

Lifted her off her feet and into his mouth, registering how slight and warm and compliant she was, and how her openness was as unusual as it was dangerous.

"Go with Marco."

"I would rather go with you."

"You need to sleep."

"If you came with me. We would do more than sleep."

"Never be so eager. Save yourself for a man worthy of you. What you would learn cannot be unlearnt."

And at that point, before she could reply, Marco de Bono crashed through the side door, said harsh words Sherlock Holmes did not even bother to register. But he made the right noises in response, the right gestures, and watched the Maltese manager and musician who might - or might not - be Mafia, be a relation of Harry Baldwin or a tool of Enrico Baldissi. Might be a plotter and a planner. Or might even be just what he appeared to be: a worried, and harassed, and over protective manager.

Sherlock Holmes watched them walk away from him, disappear round the side of the silver roofed building and towards the serviced accommodation further along the Limnfjord the centre provided for visiting artists.

He drew himself up to his full height and thought for a moment. The hairs on the back of his neck had risen into hackles, and he knew that somewhere beyond the flat open darkness there were eyes upon him.

So he lit a cigarette to create a little pool of light which would draw any - all - of the eyes that might be looking, allow him to be seen. Took two deep drags of the soothing carcinogens amid the 43,00 chemicals in a typical cigarette, turned on his heel and walked away. Ears alert for footsteps, eyes darting onto any reflective surfaces to catch a glimpse of the follower he expected. Or any other.

o0o0o

The little mediaeval cottage in the ancient centre of Aalborg was very different to the tall elegant pied de terre in Copenhagen, but probably reflected the complex character of the owner of both.

He knocked at the oak front door, which opened almost immediately. An unsmiling young blond man nodded to him as he slipped out and away, and Sherlock Holmes locked eyes - honey brown, keen assessing eyes - for a moment as neither the visitor nor the man inside the house showed any reaction. As if each waiting for the other to make a move.

"Go with this, Piet, " Sherlock Holmes' voice was the slightest whisper, and for answer a single blink was slow and deliberate. "And step into the street."

One step was all that was needed. A stronger, even harder man than he remembered from Copenhagen. Not so tall. Casual in grey sweatshirt and chinos. Relaxed, but poised for action, as always.

Sherlock Holmes stepped deliberately into the other man's personal space, slotted one long leg between strong thighs and pressed their bodies close. Possessed the strong lined face between his hands. Ignored the rush of surprise he saw reflected back at him and dipped his head, crushing his long mobile mouth against warm slightly chapped lips.

Gave every impression of sucking the life out of the man before him and absorbing it into himself.

"Good lord, Sherlock!"

The man called Piet tore his mouth away from that of Sherlock Holmes and put his hands onto the taller man's biceps to push him gently away a little. There was shock in the mellow voice, despite the silent promise. And keenly observed what he saw in the revealing light from within the house onto the face of Sherlock Holmes.

"You have hunger." A flat statement. No reply, just a slight sideways dip of the head, a movement behind those enigmatic eyes, pale and opalescent in the light upon him.

Piet Bruhl felt the exhaustion, raised a hand to cup Sherlock Holmes' jaw, his face, rubbing the sharp cheekbone a little with his thumb.

"Come inside. Let me see what I can do for you."

Without a word Sherlock Holmes stepped across the threshold and Piet Bruhl closed the door behind him.

They were in a tiny, low ceilinged sitting room full of antique rustic furniture. Comfortable and cosy.

"This is nice…."

"Shut up, Sherlock." This was a voice used to command. So it commanded. "What the hell was that about? That loving display out there? If my husband saw that….."

"Fredrik would laugh and tell you it was me being devious. He would be right. I'm sorry. Needs must."

Colonel Piet Bruhl of the Danish _Jaegerkorps,_ released some deep internal tension and gestured the consulting detective into an armchair.

"Sit down before you fall down." He waited until his guest did so. "A drink?"

"Whisky."

He crossed the room to a buffet sideboard, busied himself at a silver drinks tray, returned with two tumblers of Laphroaig, no ice or water. Sat down in his own chair and passed one glass to Sherlock Holmes and took a long appreciative sip of his own before leaning forward and instructing simply: "So tell me."

Listened with quiet concentration to the brief tale of murder and death and being hit with a chair. Of the man who escaped Appledore in the confusion created by an unconscious consulting detective, of solitary confinement and history rewritten, of a threat spray painted on a sitting room wall. Of target and attack, of a girl and a violin and another man damaged with a knife. Of revenge and persecution.

And, because this was Piet Bruhl, and because Piet Bruhl had saved him from drowning before he even knew him, had seen him naked and had cut a tracking device from beneath his skin, had lent him his private island on which to recover, he also told him about rape and attack and a bitten hip bone.

And because Sherlock Holmes had been instrumental in making sure he married the love of his life, had saved everyone close to him from blackmail and extortion, had saved his husband from being killed and caught his assailant. And because he knew and often worked in association with Sherlock Holmes' brother, Piet Bruhl listened, and understood and empathised.

He did not interrupt. He watched the impassive face and the expressive hands, the dispassionate voice and saw the frozen wall of pain behind them all. And understood. Knew the man before him would not want sympathy, kindness or advice. Nor even active help.

So when Sherlock Holmes had finished his narrative, Piet Bruhl merely said:

"Mycroft asked me to smooth the path for Doctor Watson. He is in Aalborg. He is equipped with a Beretta .22."

"I know. I don't want him here. Mycroft knows that. As does Watson. Withdraw him. Tell Mycroft whatever you like. But don't betray me by cooperating with him against me like that again."

"Not betraying. Watching your back."

"Huh!"

Sherlock Holmes leapt to his feet. Piet Bruhl stood also.

"What are you going to do now? Tell me. Tell me what that kiss was about?"

A dismissive shrug, eyes sliding away.

"I do what I must to win. Distract the hawk from lesser targets, draw it to the lure."

"You."

"Me."

"Be careful how you step into such danger. This boy is dangerous. Unlike Magnussen, he is wild, unpredictable. Quick."

"I know."

Piet Bruhl watched as Sherlock Holmes - with a sly, glittering grin in his direction - unbuttoned his shirt, hauled aside the collar. Lifted the untouched whisky from the Georgian occasional table by his side and tipped it over his head without comment. Raked his fingers through his wetted hair and pushed it back with a flick of his head, curls dripping. Licked a trail of Laphraoig from his lips.

"Waste of good whisky," Bruhl commented inconsequentially. "But you look suitably debauched."

"Good whisky is never wasted, Piet. Get Watson off my back."

"If I can…but Mycroft won't be pleased."

"Stuff Mycroft!" the words were an explosion; and he pulled back from the brink of losing self control with a rare visible effort. "This is my call, not his. He has fucked it up enough already" He snatched a breath. "Apologies."

"No need. Shout if you need me. Shout anyway."

"Yes."

Piet Bruhl crossed to the door, and opened it.

"You look fucked," he said honestly.

"Smoke and mirrors," Sherlock Holmes observed. "Thank you, Piet."

The older man patted the younger on the shoulder, squeezed his hand.

"Look after yourself," he said.

And closed the door behind him.

o0o0o

He was late. But she still opened the door and welcomed him in. Dressing gown, pyjamas, silly slippers and wine.

 _She's home, and off duty, And I am neither._

"You're late. I had gone to bed," she said It was not much of a greeting.

He simply looked at her. And she looked back, not reacting at what she saw. The eyes that were the heart and fire and the magnetism of him were tired and dull. Normally immaculate beneath the enveloping Belstaff, this time his shirt was deeply unbuttoned, showing pale and concave chest, the collar crumpled. He smelt of alcohol. And yet she knew he rarely drank.

She frowned at him, read mental and physical exhaustion in the words he did not say

"Bed. You look terrible," she said.

Still without speaking she stepped back to let him inside, and as she did so he put one hand on her shoulder, moved a little closer to lightly put his forehead to hers in a wordless gesture unlike anything she had ever seen from him before.

Her heart lurched and she drew him inside, closed the door.

"I offered tea and a bed. But you smell of booze. So a glass of wine with me instead?"

He stood in the centre of her sitting room looking dazed.

 _John gave me drugs to make me sleep a lifetime ago. No. Just a day ago. Made me still, made me sleep. How long ago was that? Really? Not a week, not a lifetime?_

"Tea would be lovely," he said demurely.

He followed her to the kitchen, propped a shoulder in the doorway, dropping his bag down his arm, as she busied herself with the simple task.

"Detektiv Inspektor Christina Ravn," he said almost absently, almost to himself. And she turned and looked at him as he spoke her name.

"Who did this to you?" she asked.

"Myself. I did it to myself." He spoke loudly, brightly, as if repeating a joke.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"No. I am going to ask you. About the attack on Johan Magnussen."

"Someone picked their spot well. No CCTV in the university car park at that point. No witnesses. Hr Magnussen is not a good victim witness." She shrugged, handed him his tea and propelled him gently into the sitting room.

He took his usual place, the sofa in the far corner of the room, as far as possible from her.

"That is not a criticism. He is a gentle soul, other worldly, even. His mind refuses his memory. He cannot believe how this happened to him, why he was targeted."

"Because he is the brother of Charles Augustus Magnussen. And an easy target."

"Yes." She paused. "We did not know of Baldwin coming to Denmark until it was too late to pick him up at the airport. We cannot trace him, either as Baldwin or Baldissi, in any hotel in the city. I am sorry."

"Someone is sheltering him here. Someone was sheltering him in London also."

"So this is more than just a boy trying for revenge on you as killer of his hero?"

"I think so. I think the intent to kill me remains his driving force, but there is more to it. I think there is someone else behind him."

"But who?"

The voice in his head screamed: _Moriarty!_ But then, the voice in his head always screamed Moriarty. He had taken down Moriarty's international crime network. He had seen no evidence of the man still being alive. He had seen Moriarty shoot himself through the head, fall to the ground. And move no more.

But the fact remained that the bloodied corpse had disappeared from the roof after he had dived off it while he, the other dead body, was claiming all the attention. And although he knew - thought he knew - the source of the _'Miss Me?'_ TV transmission that had saved him from the one way trip to Eastern Europe, he had not been told in so many words. And the need for that showed the threat officialdom still considered a dead man to be.

If anyone was going to defy his apparent and public death, it was always going to be Moriarty. The bottom line remained. If he himself could fake bloody death in a public place - then so could Moriarty. That thought always niggled. Always.

"I am not sure. Not yet. A possibility has presented itself…I need more data."

"Tell me when you can. And I will act."

"Hmn."

"I mean it, Sherlock. You are not to take risks. Not put your life on the line."

"Oh, Christina. That is not the right thing to say to me."

There was sudden laughter on his face; gallows humour, the smile on the face of the tiger. She smiled back at him because it was better than crying for him.

"Go shower. Go to bed. Spare room. I'm going to bed."

And she did so. But she couldn't sleep while she heard him still moving quietly around her home. Moving from bathroom to bedroom. And even after half an hour in there alone she could still hear the slight noises he made, imagine him pacing the floor.

Eventually she got up, left her own room and entered his.

He wore a black tee shirt and blue plaid pyjama bottoms, feet bare, standing tall and lean beside the rectangular window that looked back over the city, the nearest plain but pretty apartment block identical to the one he was in.

He had not drawn the curtains and stood looking out, one hand flat on the glass, the other fisting through his hair, deep in thought.

He barely registered her joining him, and when she asked:

"Can't you sleep? Are you OK?" he did not reply directly, but observed:

"There is almost an entire floor next door without lights on, but with curtains drawn closed, or partly so. Why is that?"

She walked softly across the room to join him, stood close beside him and looked where he looked.

"I think that is accommodation allocated to the centre and concert halls for visiting performers and technicians. It may well be empty because there is a big opera staging being installed. So no main house performances or performers this week."

He nodded, slowly and thoughtfully. Muttered something to himself. Put the fingers of both hands to his temples, frowned.

"That looks painful," she said, trying to lighten his mood.

"Not at all," he flashed a grin at her from beneath his brows, and she could not resist smiling back. Just as she began to feel uncomfortable with the silence, to turn and leave him, he spoke.

 _Screw your courage to the sticking place and we will not fail….._

"Can….can you do something for me please, Christina?"

She frowned at him, not recognising this hesitant voice.

"I owe you for catching me a serial killer, Sherlock. You can ask anything."

He smiled a sweet little smile, but did not turn his eyes to her.

"Really? So may I ask you to come closer? Run your hands over me and take off my tee shirt? Pretend you are attracted to me? Draw me over to the bed?" He shuddered a deep breath. "If that is too much to ask…I understand. Thank you."

She took another step closer. Laid her palms flat on his chest, and looked up into that almost preternaturally controlled, handsome face she had thought until that moment she knew so well. His eyes were downcast, impossibly long lashes resting on his pale cheeks, expression unreadable.

"You hate being touched," she stated. "You repel intimacy. You do not do affection. Love. Sex. Yet you want me to…..do that. To you? " She put a hand to his face, lifted his chin so she could look into his eyes in the half light.

"I am a divorced woman, A policewoman. Older than you. Sex is not cupids and love hearts to me. Are you actually asking me to fuck you? Or have I missed something?"

For a second, as she spoke, he looked sheepish. Then she saw a flash of awkward irony behind his eyes.

" You are a consummate actor, Sherlock Holmes. You are not doing this to make me - or even you - feel good. You are doing this because…." she thought, deduced, concluded. "You think someone is watching you, following you. You think someone is watching you - watching us - even now."

She gave him a little shake.

"Have you considered you may be suffering from hyper vigilance? A common symptom of PTSD. I know you suffer from PTSD. Is that recent? A result of being shot instead of Magnussen? Why you came to Denmark to recover? It's not that long ago."

He exhaled. Took a moment to reply.

"Not that simple. I have had PTSD a long time. Most of my life. Part of who I am. What I do, how and why I do it. Hyper vigilance included. That doesn't bother me."

"So what are we doing now? Showing off? Having fun? Proving a point?"

In contrast to her words, she smoothed her hands up his body, smiled at him, cupped his face gently between her hands, exerted a little pressure on one side so his head tilted towards her. In case he was right, and they really were being watched.

"We are proving….." his voice was soft and level, and did not at all reflect the appalling words he spoke. "…we are proving that I am every sort of trollop. Today I have revealed I will rut with anyone, man or woman, and that I am red hot good at it. We establish I am a slag for use. And by doing so I will distract a despicable man from his other victims and make him concentrate on me. Leave the others alone. Come on to me. First and last."

Her blood ran suddenly cold, and she quelled a shudder before it surfaced on her skin. He must not feel that from her.

"That is the most dangerous and stupid plan I have ever heard."

"Then think of one better."

She kissed him lightly, trailed her hands down his torso and her lips across his jaw, and placed her hands gently under the hem of the tee shirt, then around and behind him to caress his back.

"I wish I could. "

"Well, then."

His body was tensed, and she felt as much as heard him drag in a hard breath, could feel his heart racing against her cheek.

"I'm going to take your shirt off now. Ready?"

"Huh. Yes."

Hands under the tee shirt from behind, she hooked the shirt upwards, forwards over his head, flinging the garment heedlessly behind her to bury her face in his naked chest.

The front of him is too thin, and the back of him has too many scars. But isn't that combination so very attractive on him? She thought that. Then said as much.

And at that he threw his head back and laughed. Closed his arms around her, lifted her without effort, despite her own height and strong musculature, and stepped sideways to place her with graceful gentleness on the bed behind them.

She kept a hold on him, and pulled him down with her.

"That's enough. We are below sight lines now. You can let go of me, thank you."

Voice detached and businesslike again. Purpose served. No longer embarrassed.

But she kept a firm hold of him, pushed him onto his side.

"If we are being watched through the window…..and the watcher thinks this might be play acting….he will be looking for the bedroom door opening, or the curtains being drawn…or any movement at all away from the bed. Just. Stay. Here."

He stilled beside her, back towards her so she could not read his face. And very silent.

Daring now, she put a hand on his warm naked shoulder.

"Go to sleep. You need sleep. The doors are double locked, the alarm on and the windows four storeys up. I'm here with you. You are safe."

"Thank you, Mother."

She laughed, laced the fingertips of one hand into the curls at the nape of his neck.

"You are a terrible man. You know that?"

"Yes."

"Do you need more, Sherlock?"

"More what? I don't understand."

"A hug? Sex? It will relax you. Make you step outside of yourself for a while. And that would be good for you. You seem….beyond endurance, somehow."

There was a long, still silence, and her hand carding his hair froze.

"Kind of you," he said with a deliberate lightness, with disconnection. "But not necessary, thank you. If you could not touch me?"

She knew him too well to be offended, or even surprised, but part of her was disappointed. A deeply human part of her.

She levered herself backwards six inches, trailed her fingers free from his hair.

"I'm still here," she said with quiet determination. " And you still need to sleep."

"Am aware."

It was probably the most human admission she would ever get from him.

So she rearranged her pillow and relaxed, looked at the sky through the window. Listened to him breathe.

Finally he made a quiet little sigh, like a child settling into sleep. His breathing eased, his legs twitched a little, all the muscles relaxed.

"Sherlock? Are you still awake?"

He did not answer her. So she decided he was, finally, asleep. So she relaxed, and slept too.

o0o0o

John Watson sat back in his cramped, cold hiding place and .rearranged his limbs for the hundredth time, trying to find a comfortable position.

He couldn't decide whether to return to the warmth of his hotel, or to stay where he was. Whether he wanted to see what Sherlock Holmes did next - or if he did anything at all.

Whether the tall striking woman in whose flat he was appearing to spend the night was work or something more. And if something more….what was the thing with the Russian girl about?

And who was the military man Sherlock Holmes had snogged - at the very least - with such abandon? What was going on?

And, more importantly - why had Sherlock seen him and punched him so hard, and in public, that he had gone flying off the edge of a stage, scattering chairs and people alike?

None of this made sense! None of it!

The words kept screaming into his head, and he kept trying to stay calm. But it wasn't working. Nothing was working.

He had learnt too much today. And too many things he did not want to know. The identity of Robin. Of Isabel and her fate. The reality of the gunshot wound that had changed forever the life of Sherlock and Mycroft's father. Changed the career path and ambitions of their mother.

But what he did not know was how the events in Sri Lanka had changed Sherlock; changed the boy so much he had had to become another person. From William to Sherlock. Because of things he did not know, reasons John Watson still did not yet understand. And which he had realised from the first he needed to know.

And he also needed to know why Mycroft Holmes was so obsessed with his younger brother's welfare. Why he interfered so much in his life. And whose trust and care of Sherlock was so particular and so selective.

Add that to what he had seen of Sherlock's behaviour when alone and abroad… there were too many things he did not know or understand - or like - about his best friend Sherlock Holmes.

A flurry of texts had not helped explain nor lighten his mood.

 **Made contact with S. Does not want help.**

 **Did he hit you? MH**

 **Yes.**

 **So he thinks he makes progress MH**

 **How do you work that out? What am I doing here?**

 **Stick with him. He will need you. MH**

So John Watson stayed where he was simply because he could not decide what to do next. Or what would be best.

From time to time he dozed. The occasional car passing by on the road below roused him. But no-one came or went on the apartment walkways. And he was very bored.

He was awoken with a jolt, not even realising he had been asleep.

A firm hand shaking his shoulder.

"John! Wake up, John!" An intense whisper. A baritone voice.

"Sh….." he exclaimed, slow and disorientated.

"I am not Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson. But I need you out of here."

Leaning into his space he could see a strong profile, aquiline nose, dark hair swept back; an older man used to being in authority.

"No, I'm fine, really. A bit eccentric being here, but that's the English for you! I….."

"Be quiet and do as you are told. Without making a scene, if you don't mind. We don't want to wake the neighbours, now do we?"

And then there was a sound John Watson recognised only too well. The sound of the hammer of a gun being pulled back. That harsh click was unmistakeable. And John Watson's heart turned artic.

The gunhand moved, came into view. What light there was reflected on the barrel. And as a former soldier he recognised the silhouette of a Beretta PX4 Storm. Type C.

A professional's gun.

"Just in case you need persuasion," said the voice behind the gun.

"Well, as you put it so nicely…."

He crawled from the tiny space on hands and knees. Stood up slowly, joints creaking.

As he did so one hand grasped his shoulder again, the other raised the gun and brought it round to line up with his head.

"No dramatics, doctor. Or you will regret them."

Before he could even think of resisting a hand dipped into the pocket of the duffle coat and drew out the smaller Beretta. Which was swiftly transferred into the pocket of an expensive blue Crombie overcoat

"And now you come with me."

The hand on his shoulder, gripped harder, manhandled. But with the PX4 Storm so close there was no argument.

He was being strong armed away from Sherlock. He did not know where to, or who by. And there was no-one to see it happen. He could disappear forever. And no-one would know. Not Sherlock, not Mary, Not even bloody Mycroft!

 _Bloody Mycroft! This was all his fault!_

He threw a backwards look at the apartment where Sherlock remained; just a wall away. Just a wall away….and not know his best friend was being abducted at gunpoint. The frustration was enough to make him furious.

"Calm, Doctor Watson. Now we go."

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Author's notes:**

Piet Bruhl and Christina Ravn, along with Matti Anker, first appeared in the prequel to this story, _Things We Lost In The Flames._

Moriarty's body disappearing from the roof of Bart's is detailed by Sherlock in _The Abominable Bride._

Laphroaig: Famous Scottish single malt whisky, know for it's smokey, peaty taste. One for connoisseurs.

Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we will not fail: Macbeth Act 2 Scene 7

.

.


	11. Chapter 11

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 11

 _You visit us at dawn and put us to test at any moment. Will you not spare me and let me be?_

 _{Parce Mihi Domine (Spare me, Lord) from Officium Defunctum (Office of the Dead) Book of Job}_

At the sight of the dark limousine waiting at the kerb John Watson - being strong-armed forward by a dark and dangerous stranger with a serious handgun lined up against his head - stopped walking and burst out laughing.

"Oh, God! This must be Groundhog Day! And I might as well be back in London. Are you a friend of Mycroft Holmes by any chance?"

"What?"

"I cannot tell you…." Watson huffed, his sense of the absurd overtaking any fear, "I really cannot tell you how many times I have been abducted and whisked away in a limousine just like this one! Going to dump me in an empty warehouse and make threats, are you?"

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Oh, nothing much. Let's just say this scenario doesn't worry me any more."

"Stop babbling, and just get in."

There was no Anthea this time, with her winning smile and unfocussed eyes, but there was an impassive driver, plush upholstery, a gun with the safety off and a taciturn tall dark handsome stranger by his side instead. The sense of déjà vu was dizzying.

Even for a relatively short drive the silence in the car was palpable, but for some reason John Watson was no longer terrified. Almost relaxed. Familiarity breeds contempt, he thought.

But he was totally unprepared to leave the car and be taken towards the ancient half timbered cottage he had stood outside just hours before.

"Whoa! What are we doing here? 'Cos I really don't go in for male….."

"You'll see. Stop babbling."

Whatever John Watson had been expecting, it was not a cosy cottage filled with antique furniture and Expressionist art. Nor the man he had seen the evening before being so violently kissed by Sherlock Holmes sitting at ease in a winged armchair by an inglenook fireplace calmly reading a newspaper.

"Good morning, Doctor Watson. Pleased to meet you at last."

The man folded his paper carefully and put it down, said casually enough: "Put the gun down, Freddie. You got the right man," and stood up, held out a square calloused hand to shake his own.

"This is a bloody odd sort of kidnapping."

"Kidnapping? Not at all."

The man's face crinkled into a smile, the craggy lines deepening.

"You may not be here on strictly legal business, but kidnapped you are not." He looked at the tall dark man who had only reluctantly released John Watson's arm and lowered the Storm, but who still checked the window and looked outside before slowly returning the heavy hand gun to a tension spring shoulder holster under his jacket.

"My friend Freddie tends to act first, talk later. Not a fault: it just makes him a little frightening and very good at what he does."

"And what does he do?"

"We come to that later." He waved John Watson into the armchair opposite his own. "In the meantime, welcome to Denmark. I gather you have been busy. Following Sherlock."

"What is that to you? How do you know that? And who the hell are you?"

"I am the man you spoke to on the telephone last night. My name is Piet Bruhl. That will mean nothing to you, nor should it. Suffice to say I am a high ranking officer in the _Jaegerkorps,_ which as you may know, is our equivalent of your SAS.

"Also: when you met Sherlock while he was convalescing after being shot by your wife, you were on a little island called Agnaro. That island is mine. I provided his refuge. And after Mycroft Holmes left you by helicopter, he came to regimental headquarters for a meeting with me. Is that enough brownie points for you?"

John Watson nodded. Whatever he may have been expecting, it was not that. There was a great deal of secret knowledge revealed there to compute.

"So what are you to Sherlock?"

An intense look with what might have been a flash of humour came his way.

"A man he trusts enough to kiss passionately without warning, you mean? Yes. It appears I have that honour. " He grinned openly then. " But as I told him last night, my husband might have something to say about that. Sherlock was amused at the thought."

John Watson, unimpressed, flashed a brief grin totally devoid of humour or empathy. Not sure if he was being teased or taunted. Or simply told the truth.

"You going to tell me what I'm doing here?"

"Debriefing of course. Captain Watson. "

"Is there anything you don't know?"

"My geography of the Himalayas isn't so hot."

A younger blond man entered soundlessly from the kitchen next door carrying a tray of coffee mugs. John Watson recognised the man who had met him at Aalborg Airport off his Norwegian Air Shuttle flight. Matti Anker.

"So you two have been involved in this from the start?" John Watson's world tilted. He nodded towards Matti Anker. "Your husband?" he asked.

"No. Staff. As he told you yesterday, I think?" Piet Bruhl took his coffee and gestured to John Watson to take his. "Tell us what you saw last night, Matti."

The young man handed the older man called Freddie, now perched on the windowsill, another coffee, and as he did so took his own, swinging the tray down onto the floor. Equals within a pecking order, Watson registered.

"Dr Watson knew Sherlock's destinations here thanks to Mycroft. After observing Sherlock bid goodnight to Miss Almedova he came here direct but I arrived first. I left here as Sherlock arrived. But Sherlock was followed, from the airport to the Utzon, to here, and then from here to Christina's flat.

"Because the two men following Sherlock were not expecting Dr Watson, they did not see him. Mainly because the doctor was not following but anticipating. Not quite amateurs, but close enough. When they had decided Sherlock was staying for the night, they split up. And so I lost them. Returned here."

"I saw a young man in a dark trench coat. With the collar flipped up, the way Sherlock…."

"Yes, Doctor. That was Baldissi. I do not know the other man. I took photographs. Christina will seek to identify him when she picks up her email with attachments later."

"Who is Christina? The elegant woman Sherlock spent the night with?"

"Detektiv Inspektor Christina Ravn is a mutual friend. They both came to my wedding, which is where they met." Piet Bruhl allowed himself a cheeky grin. "Sherlock solved a serial murder case for her while he was convalescing. Let's say she owes him a favour."

"Thank you." A pause for thought.

Piet Bruhl presented unusual and immaculate references that could not be a pretence, but still baffled the doctor. But there was more, he knew. An alternative secret life for Sherlock since he returned from the dead? A life he knew nothing at all about? Or was this more secrecy by officialdom? More diplomatic sleight of hand?

"So he was right," John Watson mused aloud. "There is more to this than just spiteful revenge against Sherlock."

"It appears so."

"I know so. " The dominant figure Bruhl had called Freddie now stepped forwards into John Watson's eyeline.

"My name is Alfredo Catalini. And before you ask - as everyone does - yes, the same name as the composer. And no - no relation." he smiled. It was not a charming smile.

"Despite all appearances to the contrary, Mycroft Holmes takes the instincts of his little brother very seriously. When he alerted me of Sherlock's concern of a possibility that there may be more to this persecution than meets the eye, I too took it seriously. Between Mycroft, Piet and myself we triangulated our knowledge and responses.

"I had never met Sherlock, but his reputation and success rate goes before him."

"You mean you've met Sherlock now? Recently?"

"The night before last. While you were dealing with the taxi incident. After Sherlock left you. Remember that?"

"He said nothing happened…."

"He would, wouldn't he?"

The knowledge that all three men - all strangers - knew more than he did about his best friend made John Watson uneasy. And angry. Angry about the way he had neglected Sherlock while falling in love with Mary Morstan. Angry how Sherlock had been treating him since leaving the airfield.

" Why would Mycroft confide in you? Who in hell are you anyway? MI6? Mafia? "

Alfredo Catalani shrugged.

"'Confide' is a bit strong. But he thought my connections sufficiently unique…" he paused. "My background is Mafia. My family are Mafia. But my mother was English.

"So as only idiots with my schizophrenic background would do, I joined the police. Walked both sides of the street for a long time. Which, to cut a long story short, is why I now work for a special section of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Which, if you don't know, is the world's largest security organisation."

"I don't understand. What are you doing involved in this? This is Sherlock's problem. Personal, not global. Nothing to do with you."

"On the contrary, Doctor Watson."

John Watson's attention swivelled to the kitchen door and to the tall elegant man in the Anderson and Sheppard bespoke suit carrying a briefcase and umbrella, who slipped through it now and spoke with cool authority.

"Oh, look!" John Watson said with a disgust he did not bother to conceal. "And here is the bad penny. The fly in the ointment. The ghost in the machine. So what are you here for? Are we having a party?"

"Very droll, Doctor." That thin patronising smile "We are all here because, although it pains me to say it, Sherlock has, as usual, hit a nail squarely on the head."

"What nail?"

"His certainty there is more to this persecution than simple eye for an eye revenge. Distraction from the real purpose. To hide the real reason those four men were based at Appledore and not part of the CAM News machinery."

"Explain, Mycroft." John Watson's voice was cold with recognition of truth, and a horror that came with that.

"We all made an elementary mistake dealing with Appledore," Mycroft Holmes began. " We assumed the three men central to life at Magnussen's country pile were there as plenipotentiaries - his….personal functionaries, shall we say?"

"We now consider this may well be true, but was also a deliberate ploy to disguise their real function. Operating the profitable and illegal business Magnussen ran on the side; his private interest behind his public profile. And which certainly helped it along."

"His legitimate business was his media empire. What was the other thing?"

The question dragged out of John Watson against his will. He had an awful premonition he already knew: and he didn't want to.

"We have found so much material hidden in Magnussen's secret rooms it is going to take years to sort out," Mycroft Holmes explained. "Because of this….aberration ….and the speed with which this event is occurring ….I am - we are - having to take some educated guesses as a result," Mycroft Holmes said. "I am uncomfortable giving imprecise and incomplete information. But needs must." He shook his head, impatient with himself, his level of knowledge.

"Magnussen started his media career by taking over a nasty little porn magazine called ' _Skin._ ' It is perhaps appropriate to point out leopards do not change their spots.

"Four men attacked and raped Sherlock at Appledore, as some rather convenient but distasteful secret photographs proved. Convenient for us, anyway. One of the men was Magnussen himself."

"The others were Carlsson, Baldissi and Simeon Kosi Nzema. Carlsson was killed by Special Forces when he attacked Sherlock. Danish police had a file of unproven accusations against him. That he managed to knock Sherlock out when he did has proved problematical to the authorities - and to Sherlock - ever since.

"Regrettably because we did not have my brother's input, we missed Baldissi when the scene was secured after Magnussen's death, and he was able to escape. Also: perhaps if we had all been less hasty in closing down Appledore, had made fewer presumptions, we would have located vital time critical information earlier.

"But I will only admit this privately, to you four on a need-to-know basis. I shall deny it if pressed."

He paused to give his words full import. No-one in the room replied or reacted.

"We are working hard to make up for that deficiency. By not keeping Sherlock on site at Appledore until he revived so he could give information or deduction, Baldissi was allowed to escape, the totality of Magnussen's network not understood soon enough. That was a regrettable oversight."

"Sherlock was unconscious. Injured," interrupted Watson, his voice harsh. "You would not let me near him, or examine him. Not even to let me bring him round for you. So he could do just that! You wanted to hurry him away, regardless of what was best. Best for him or for the situation. Only considering what was best for you. You were embarrassed by him. Your fault, Mycroft."

John Watson had problems keeping his voice level. His eyes met the cool gaze of Sherlock's older brother and for once he saw something about those sharp blue eyes he was not used to seeing; a sliding away, a falter, some admittance of what could even be guilt, something like apology. But Mycroft continued to speak without making any admission he had even heard the words.

"We have been trying to get up to speed quickly. But we only had one of the four men who assaulted Sherlock in our hands - the Ghanian. We had thought he was a minor cog in Magnussen's wheel of fate. But - and I apologise for the distasteful but essentially informative aspect of this - the participation of the four in assaulting Sherlock indicated proclivity, expertise, obscenity of method and an established teamwork between them.

"Fortunately Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade has what is called an old fashioned policeman's nose - an instinct for crime. He twice tried to get Sherlock to press rape charges against Nzema and failed. But he kept digging, before the man was deported for being an illegal alien. That would have been an easy removal and would do the job.

"The Ghanian Organised and Economic Crime Office was delighted to be tipped off about him; because although he had a record in typical Ghanian sex and money crimes, rumours, venues and known contacts indicated he was fishing in deeper waters. Human trafficking. Sexual trafficking. Children. The fastest rising human trade worldwide. And if him, then the other three also. Once pointed in the right direction, we have indeed found relative files in Magnussen's records and these are currently being assessed. "

"Oh, God."

For a moment it was as if the debriefing was between Mycroft and Watson alone; as if the other three men were the other side of a glass wall. A brief nod between the two of them registered that.

"Which is where I came in," Freddie Catalani took over the conversation as smoothly as if it had been rehearsed. "To establish if the links are real, if Baldissi is part of this highly lucrative evil. His history indicates the strongest probability. His behaviour confirms it.

"On our brief extremely stressful meeting Sherlock saw my Mafia link; read my Italian special forces connection. He is a laser. I had not quite expected that. Thought his reputation was …gilded. It isn't." He smiled, a hollow, internal thing. "He did not, however, see what I do now.

"I work with Colonel Bruhl's husband. Fredrik Sonderson runs the Copenhagen office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. I also work with his husband's sister in law, indirectly. She is a lawyer and adviser specialising in human rights, refugees, on behalf of people and children dispossessed, hurt and hurting.

"Specifically I work for the OSCE's Office Of The Representation And Coordination For Combating Traffic In Human Beings. Big title, simple purpose."

"OK. Things have changed. Bigger suddenly."

"Yes, Dr Watson. If we assume the inevitable, that all four men were cogs in the same wheel, Baldissi does us a favour going after Sherlock. That makes him locatable, visible, and exposes his secret network too.

"Sherlock the target becomes the hub of the wheel, the weakness luring Baldissi out into daylight.

"And because Baldissi chases down Sherlock, I follow Sherlock, and so I confront Baldissi. Place him.

"Sherlock was angry with me for not taking Baldissi down on the spot. But I need Baldissi free for now, to lead me to the rest of Magnussen's organisation. Take them all down. I have no doubt Sherlock will snare Baldissi for me."

"Sherlock is your bait? Bait for your ends as well as his own?"

"Of course. Consider. Magnussen was fascinated by Sherlock. Baldissi is too. He has also had him. Wants to have him again, in any way possible, before he kills him. An appetite and an ego like that are weaknesses not to be wasted or ignored. And so Sherlock is the best bait possible. In every way.

"Sherlock will draw Baldissi to him to end it. He knows what he is doing, and he is right."

"But does he know all this?"

"He doesn't need to. Knowing his impulsive behaviour….perhaps not."

"Even if it kills him?"

"You know what his answer would be to that," Piet Bruhl's contribution was quiet and calm. "He would tell you the risk is worth the result, and what happens to him is immaterial.

"He needs to get Baldissi to save his friends, Dr Watson.. Being bait to draw Baldissi down is the only way to do that. Being Sherlock, he needs to not just get Baldissi, but find the big wheel he suspects is driving this machine.

"He doesn't know what the machine is yet, just that it is there. And better in the long run, have him working blind just now," Mycroft Holmes stated. "We don't want his judgement or his priorities clouded by his revulsion for the subject matter."

"I wish I could be as heartless as you all, I really do," John Watson commented, appalled.

"No you don't," Piet Bruhl contradicted. "You know him too well, you love him. And he needs your anchor. Not everyone is lucky enough to have one."

"Was that actually a compliment?"

"Was that actually hard to tell?" Bruhl shot back. The sudden genuine smile was worth waiting for. So John Watson returned it. Soldier to soldier.

" But we must not let him know any of this," Mycroft Holmes interrupted coldly. "Gentlemen, please note. We need Sherlock to think that the only focus here is on capturing and neutralising Baldissi. I do not want him distracted by this new development.

"He has a particular hatred of child trafficking that could put him off balance for the immediate task in hand. He would sacrifice his own safety and his own plan without a thought to capture the intelligence in control of this human trafficking, which continues despite Magnusson's death, and has clearly been instrumental in allowing Baldissi to disappear from sight between his strikes."

"Please don't tell me we are talking about Moriarty?"

Mycroft Holmes turned to him with cold eyes.

"We know nothing about Moriarty. He is dead. Sherlock saw him shoot himself through the mouth. But as it is Moriarty …. I cannot truly believe he is dead until I see the corpse. Sherlock would say the same."

"Dealing with Baldissi comes first. We have been unable to stop or capture him because we have been unable to find him - totally invisible, both in London and here.

"So we play catch up and concentrate on the bigger game. But we must also keep Sherlock to his original purpose. Stopping Baldissi. Even though Sherlock suspects a bigger and broader game exists. And so he will doubtless strive to know more."

"He won't like your policy when he finds out."

"And why should he find out, Dr Watson?" Mycroft Holmes was intent and focussed. Severe. "Unless we tell him?"

"He's your brother. Have some pity, for once."

"No-o-o," that long drawn out unanswerable syllable. "This is the only way we keep him true to his purpose. As bait, he will get Baldissi and save individuals. While we attempt to solve the bigger puzzle and save masses. Perhaps even save Sherlock from himself while we're at it."

John Watson got to his feet.

"How can you even consider manipulating him like this? How cold blooded are you, Mycroft?"

"I agree with you. Doctor," Piet Bruhl quietly picked a side. "I also feel Sherlock should know. For what that's worth. He can handle both. But I am merely a functionary here. …."

"No," Mycroft Holmes stated flatly. "I know Sherlock better than any of you. And this is my decision. My fault if things go wrong. I am willing to shoulder that.

"Are any of you?"

o0o0o

Something woke her. Noise? Movement? A change of breathing pattern?

For a split second she wondered where she was, who she was with….and then she realised she was in her own apartment, in her own guest bed. And she was lying next to Sherlock Holmes.

Correction. With Sherlock Holmes. Sprawled half across Sherlock Holmes. Sometime in the night her subconscious had drawn her to his warmth and strength, and she had unknowingly reached out to him in her sleep.

And here he was next to her, lying on his back as she nestled into his side while lying tucked under his right arm, and with one of her hands, her own right hand, twisted into the front of his black tee shirt.

But instead of being at ease and relaxed, as she was, his tension was palpable. Awake but motionless, she realised, as she lay insinuated into his right side, while the arm away from her, his left arm, arched up and back and was clutching the top of the headboard of the bed as if for survival, to save himself from drowning, knuckles strained white. His face shone with a thin film of sweat, and dark empty eyes glittered as he stared at the ceiling. Swallowed convulsively.

"Sherlock….?" She unfolded her hand from his tee shirt, lifted her fingertips to the hard line of his jaw to capture his attention. "What's the matter?"

" I couldn't move. Can't. Without disturbing you. Can't breathe…."

She sat up instantly, scrambling to face him, looking down at him. Fast shallow breaths, bone deep tension, fathomless eyes. Hyperventilating. Panic triggered by her simple touch. Panic started to fire in her in response to his.

But then he moved as quickly as she had done. And as soon as she released him he was out of his side of the bed, checking the window, flicking the curtains across.

The half light of early morning darkened, and she lunged across the bed to catch his wrist as he then hurried to leave the room.

"Hyper vigilance. PTSD. Just breathe." She shook the arm she held to catch his attention, as he was not looking at her. "What has made you like this? Is this my fault?"

"What? No. Why should it be?" He looked down at her, puzzlement genuine.

"I was touching you. Had moved over to you in my sleep. I'm sorry. I didn't realise….touch so disturbed you."

"It doesn't. I….just don't like it."

"Do you always have this reaction when you sleep with someone?" she asked gently.

"What? No. I don't."

He was flustered, his reply ambiguous. They both realised it.

"OK. Fine. I'm sorry," she said, striving for firmer ground. ". So….there's no-one watching us?"

"Not that I can see. But when daylight comes I will check the placement of curtains again….show any change in the patterns. Occupied properties. Normality…."

"Sherlock…."

"No. Just no. " He strove for a neutral expression, lifted her fingers from his wrist with his other hand. "I must get dressed. Things to do. I have wasted time sleeping."

o0o0o

The front door of Piet Bruhl's home opened with a crash, and a Sherlock Holmes shaped whirlwind entered the front room of the little cottage. Spun sharply on one heel, flung his hands in the air in a swirl of Belstaff and black looks, black curls.

Expecting to find only Piet Bruhl and Matti, the presence of three other men caught him unawares, wrong footed.

"Oh, great! How many deaths heads do we need at this feast?" He was angry in the intense way only Sherlock Holmes could be; head high, face impassive, mouth downturned and nostrils flaring.

"Look at you all. Plotting my fate, here to watch me run round in circles like a lab rat. Happy about that, are we?"

Mycroft Holmes was immobile and impassive as usual. His silent watchful poise reflected by Alfredo Catalani. John Watson half rose from his seat, as did Piet Bruhl, while Matti Anker slipped quietly behind Sherlock and closed the door.

"It's not like that. You know that. We are trying our best to help you." Mycroft Holmes was the first to speak. John Watson realised the others were letting him, watching him, take the lead. Silently complicit with his demand, his instructions.

"Why?"

"Because you are the perfect instrument of justice, little brother. "

"Twaddle. Tell me what's going on. What you are all doing here. Clearly plotting. "

"You are what is going on. Admirably in full flow. That's enough for the entire continent. Of Europe."

There was a hanging silence as the two brothers glared at each other.

"So big brother has roped you in too, has he? Told you where I was, where I would be. How chummy." Focus changed. The words were fired at John Watson. Sherlock turned and concentrated on him with a sense of hurt betrayal in voice and eyes perhaps only palpable to his doctor.

"I don't need your brother to push me into caring what happens to you. Despite everything. Despite even you. I'm trying to mind your back." The words came out so instinctively, so flat and fierce, the speaker was embarrassed by the emotion revealed by them.

"Mind my back? Kind of you to offer. But far too late. So don't." The curt words were dismissive. "Haven't you learnt anything over the past two days? Not the sleeping pills? Not the slap? How stupid and stubborn are you?"

The words were calculated to hurt and dismiss. Pale eyes floated over and past John Watson to Piet Bruhl.

"Why are you entertaining these people in your house? My brother, this mystery man, my former colleague. This is nothing to do with them. I am here in Denmark for the benefit of your husband, his brother and his wife. And for you. To make you all safe. You and the Magnussens….."

"I work with your brother from time to time." The answer was deceptively mild.

"Not this time. Not officially, anyway. Or you would all be gathered in any of several formal settings. Certainly not in your own home. So what are you all plotting behind my back, Piet? Because it can't be anything good, now can it?"

Piet Bruhl shook his head, jolted into impassivity, and looked silently at Mycroft for a lead as Sherlock Holmes turned to Alfredo Catalani.

"And where do you stand? To help or impede me? Impeding, I would say. As you neither killed nor arrested Enrico Baldissi when you had the chance. You let him go two nights ago. What did that achieve?"

"I had no authority to kill the man. I was there to safeguard you. Your Mafia brake block, if you like."

The eyes of two tall dark handsome men locked. A silent battle of wills that lasted for five long seconds.

"I don't like. And you are not Mafia, Mr Catalani. Not really. You could have stopped everything two nights ago with Mafia authority if you were, and Enrico Baldissi would have disappeared with the thoroughness Harry Baldwin has. But you didn't."

"I stopped him killing you. Isn't that enough?"

A dismissive wave of the hand. A supercilious look.

"If you had let him kill me you would have had every excuse to just take him down. Even if you had only handed him over to the police afterwards, he would have been found guilty of murder and incarcerated. No longer a danger, either way."

"Why would I let him do that?"

"The best result all round. Tidy. Logical. Two birds with one stone." He drew a strong breath. "Pathetic and disappointing to see powerful men like you made powerless by sentiment. Morals. Lack of orders. Pathetic."

He stood and looked at them all for a moment, turning slowly in the centre of the room. The brain was working, deducing, calculating. Something moved behind those deep opal eyes.

"So: you all let my brother dominate you. Bending to his will, regardless of your own judgements on the matter." He peered at all four men one by one. Half way between a frown and a sneer. But emitting a sense of total betrayal. "Do learn from me. Do not give my brother free rein. If you do he will be the death of me, perhaps of us all.

"He always forgets I am his dragon slayer, you see. Tries to dominate me. Always lets me down when really needed. You might do well to remember that."

He looked at them with a scathing, searching eye that had no pity in it; no pity, but a great deal of disillusionment.

"So I stand alone? Nothing new …."

He never finished the sentence. Because the mobile phone in his pocket rang.

Turning away, presenting his back to the room, he looked at the caller identity.

"Sherlock Holmes," he said. "Yes, Chris?"

The other four men in the room looked at each other; raised their eyebrow shook their heads slightly. None of them knew who this person called Chris was; or even what sex Chris was. So they listened to one half of a conversation meaningless to them. And understood none of it.

And because Sherlock Holmes knew this, he did not concern himself to leave the room or lower his voice.

"No, I did not expect to hear from you earlier. Time and opportunity to hack into an accounts system is never easy. What did you find?" A listening silence.

"Two weeks every Christmas you say? Not just two days, but two days plus the whole of the twelve days? The whole suite? That would make sense. And three days every March and September? That would mean half yearly accounts, would it not?" More silence.

"And what is the name on the payments?" A pause. A nod. "Yes, of course. Oh! And that makes sense too.

"Another name? Tell me. Oh. Oh yes, I see. Now I see. Thank you, Chris. That puts a different complexion….yes. Call if you find anything else; however unimportant it might seem."

He finished the call, looked fiercely at the telephone for a few seconds, deep in thought.

"Sherlock? Who was that? What has happened?"

He answered his brother's urgent words with a secret feral smile that showed teeth but no amusement. That blank flare in the eyes of a brain working behind them.

"Nothing to do with you, Mycroft. Nothing to do with any of you!" The words started quietly, but by the end he was shouting. Angry. Bitter. "What do you care, after all?"

"Calm down, Sherlock," Piet Brul suggested softly. "Come and sit down, let me cook you - cook us all - a good breakfast."

"For God's sake!"

He swung an arm to knock the fresh coffee out of the hand Matti Anker was offering him, and watched dispassionately as it bounced off the stone floor and shattered.

He slammed out of the house as he had slammed into it: and four men looked at each other in various degrees of shock and horror.

"Stop him, John." Piet Bruhl's command was instant.

"Why is it always me?" John Watson was complaining, but on his feet and moving even as he spoke.

"Because you are his sanity, and if he listens to anyone it is you," Mycroft Holmes observed. "God help us."

The door opened again, and Watson was through it fast, looking right and left. To see Sherlock striding quickly down the street towards the Utzon. John Watson had to move even faster to catch him up and overtake him.

As he caught an arm, swung the taller man round to face him, the doctor was appalled at the anger and hurt still on that normally composed and unreadable face.

Not assumed for effect to impress his audience, then. Truth.

"Sherlock, wait! Wait! What the hell has got into you?"

"You need ask?" the expression turned from angry to savage. His friend quailed, but did not let go of the arm he was now swinging from like a terrier on a postman's satchel as Sherlock Holmes whirled on the spot, trying to dislodge him.

"Do you not see what I saw in there? All you clever men - cleverer than me, clearly - sitting round pronouncing on me?" his voice was low, a mere hiss, breath on John Watson's face. "On what I do and how I do it? Waiting for me to expose myself to death and danger? Yet doing nothing at all to help me."

"That is so not true….."

He shook himself angrily free. "More betrayal, is it? And you, too….?"

He shook his head, the storm grey eyes flashed, the hands flailed in the air. Started to shout in frustration.

"Go back and tell them I do this for them! Do they see it? Get it? Oh, who cares?" He started to try to walk away again. "Tell them I'll still win this, all on my own. Regardless! "

"Regardless? Of what?" Watson stood firm and blocked his path.

"Humiliation. Oblivion. Whatever. Whatever Mycroft knows and isn't telling…." the words stumbled to a stop and for a moment he stooped, clutched his head. John Watson was suddenly, piercingly terrified his friend was going to cry.

"Don't worry, John." Sherlock Holmes' voice changed as he read the expression on the older man's face. "I'll do what I said I would. Get Baldissi. Leave me now to.. ..check on Johan ...draw Baldissi into range…."

"Let me help you, Sherlock. For God's sake, stop being so pig headed and independent…."

"Oh, John. Alone protects me. How many times do I have to tell you? So leave me alone!"

He started walking away. Three steps. Then paused, and turned, and came back. The anger had quietened a little now, but he still vibrated with it, which was no less terrifying.

"No," he said. "On second thoughts. No. You come. Follow me. See how well I do this without you. How I do not need you. So you get it. At last."

The pain and bitterness in the voice was of a level John Watson had never heard before. And he reeled before it; the emotional damage that ravaged the face and the body language, the potential violence of clenched hands barely kept in check.

"Come, then. Follow me, John." He reeled off an address. "I am going to meet Johan. He leaves hospital for home today. Be one step behind me this one last time, John. Then leave me alone. To my oblivion." He paused, but gave John Watson no time to reply. Dropped his voice.

"But I have somewhere else to be first. Be outside Johan's in three hours. Or don't come near me at all."

And he was gone, leaving John Watson rejected and immobile behind him, standing sick at heart and empty of soul in the middle of the cobbled street, watching him stride away.

Looked, transfixed, at the stern and unyielding set of the shoulders under the Belstaff..

It was some moments before he could bring himself to move his feet and return to Piet Bruhl's house.

o0o0o

There was a golf course. Trees and meadows. Pretty lanes. Neat, upper middle class houses. Two new ones were being built on a smallish plot and stood almost complete, so the lane where Johan Magnussen lived was full of craftsman's vehicles, empty in the main, as specialist tradesmen came and went.

Apart from the elderly blue Saab in which two men who looked like workmen sat, sharing a coffee break and perhaps awaiting orders for the next job.

"What the hell are we doing here?" John Watson, in the passenger seat, gave a frustrated sigh.

"Back up for Sherlock," replied Piet Bruhl. "Invited."

He sat in the driving seat, square hands wrapped around a mug of hot coffee. In beanie hat and lumberjack shirt, he looked every inch the artisan craftsman himself. Watson, still in the new butcher boy hat and duffle coat, was slowly munching a sandwich.

No-one but Sherlock Holmes would have looked at them twice.

"I don't understand. How did you get involved in all this?"

"I was at risk of blackmail, as was the man who is now my husband. His brother's wife was the subject of the original Magnussen blackmail plot that involved Lord Smallwood, years ago. When this thing really started. So you could say I have a vested interest." He drank some coffee, eyes everywhere but on the smart house with the blue front door, into which Johan Magnussen had disappeared half an hour earlier.

"I work with Mycroft occasionally. Was fortunate to meet Sherlock in Copenhagen during a difficult time…" he refrained from mentioning saving Sherlock Holmes from drowning, about cutting an electronic tracker from beneath his skin with only a kitchen knife, salt and superglue to do the deed.

"I like him. Admire him. Is that not enough? But I do not claim to know him the way you know him."

He found himself reassuring, which was unusual for him. He did not understand why, even watching John Watson's suddenly shuttered face, his internal concentration.

Piet Bruhl realised that in his own way the ordinary and placid looking former soldier was an much an enigma as Sherlock Holmes. And as unpredictable.

"I'm not sure I know him at all," came the reluctant reply. "He doesn't seem to like me; and he certainly doesn't trust me any more. In the last two days he has drugged me and abandoned me. Abused me in public."

"Sherlock for public consumption is not Sherlock in private," Bruhl mused. "Although I suppose even the strongest friendships go through difficult times _._ It is natural."

 _You are the only person I really trust. The only friend I have is you. Are you listening? Are you hearing me? I don't say such things often._

"How would you know? What do you think you know about him?"

Piet Bruhl looked at him searchingly.

"I know something simple that is pure Sherlock. When he is most charming he is at his most dangerous. And when he is at his most dangerous he is at his most vulnerable. He is vulnerable now. What makes him so vulnerable, John?"

"I…don't…know," was the slow and reluctant reply. Confession. "Nothing has been the same between us since he came back from the dead. Since I found Mary and married her."

Piet Bruhl said nothing, but Watson hurried to answer the expression on his face.

"And I don't mean because there was ever anything sexual between us. We're not …..like that."

"I am the last person to make that speech to, John. Not interested, don't care."

He looked away dispassionately, trying not to read or register the other man's distress.

"I was watching Sherlock. Last night," John Watson said, voice ragged. "When he kissed you. What was that about?"

"You don't know?"

"If I knew I wouldn't ask. Bloody embarrassing…"

The words trailed away unhappily.

"Think, John. Catching killers is not new to Sherlock. But this time people - people he knows, people he is close to - are being threatened and damaged to damage him. To weaken him before killing him.

"His instinct is to hunt down a killer and protect the innocent. By turning on you in public he is doing his best to protect you, to demonstrate you no longer have value to him, that you are a worthless target.

"By the same reasoning, by kissing the Russian girl, then me, and then Christina, he signals his availability. His voracious sexual appetite. He knows Baldissi is watching him, so he makes him jealous. Offers himself in kind."

"But he's not like that…"

"No, he isn't. But he can do that. He can suspend his dignity, his self respect, his morals and his own personal aversion to being human."

"That is stupid. Reckless and dangerous."

"But of course. We are talking about Sherlock Holmes."

John Watson knuckled his fist into the side of his face, a gesture of frustration and anger.

"Why not tell me what he was doing? Let me help?"

"He didn't tell you because he couldn't. Because…." Bruhl hesitated before seeming to change the subject. "Have you ever considered his real stress point in involving you is the fact your wife is an assassin?"

"Mary is not an assassin! Wasn't when I met her. Isn't now."

"But she was. And no-one can ignore the past. It makes us what we become." He paused. "What else has changed between you and Sherlock? Or has anything really changed? Is it just this situation?"

"Magnussen made a difficult situation worse. And now he is dead."

"But he has left a legacy behind. And two brothers…."

He dug John Watson in the ribs.

"Sherlock."

The familiar coat and scarf, the elegant collected walk, coming alone the lane towards them. Hands in pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold wind, he did not look across at the Saab as he passed, appeared not even to notice car or occupants.

Crossed the road and walked up the path to ring the doorbell. And waited. Bruhl and Watson waited too.

o0o0o

Sherlock Holmes smiled one of his rare genuine smiles at the man who answered the door.

Sandy blond hair, good bone structure, pale blue eyes; just like his older brothers. But there was little of Johan Magnussen to remind anyone of either Charles or Pedder. And Sherlock was unexpectedly relieved and reassured by that.

Shorter, stocky, hair thick and wavy, a good natured smile and a remarkably unlined face made Johan Magnussen seem younger than his years, and very much the youngest brother. But he also oddly reminded Sherlock of Mike Stamford.

Cuddly rather than cool, clever rather than quick witted; another cloistered academic. This one with a light gauze dressing across his forehead, protecting the surgeon's handiwork that had repaired the criminal's damage.

"Sherlock Holmes? Thrilled to meet you. I have heard so much about you. Please come in."

He stood back and ushered Sherlock inside a typical Scandinavian home: sleek modern furnishings, cool colours, tasteful yet impersonal in style. Gestured him towards an armchair.

Sherlock sat down with his back to the room, facing the large front facing picture window.

"How are you? Does that hurt?"

He gestured towards the dressing, grimaced in sympathy.

"Hurt? No. Not now. Will heal without a mark, apparently. Micro abrasion. I get better."

"Do you know why you were singled out for attack?"

"No idea. It must be to do with my name - my brothers. I am not a man with enemies. I live a quiet and blameless life. I have a wife and two small daughters. I teach literature at the university. What more can I say?"

Even to the cynical mind of Sherlock Holmes, the honesty was palpable.

"Tell me about your brothers."

"I am a few years younger than both. They were always quite remote from me. They took after our father - tall, slim, ambitious, rather distant. I take after our mother. Small and ordinary. Content with my lot.

"Charles was always ambitious. He left home young to pursue a life of which our parents did not approve."

"Journalism?"

"No, Mr Holmes. Sex. My brother was always aware of his attractive looks. He became a model, enjoyed the sexual power that gave him. So he came to own his first publication: a porn magazine.

"We may guess how he got the money and power to do that while still in his early twenties. But we can make an educated guess." Johan Magnussen nodded and smiled a resigned smile. "He wanted power and influence, and knew how to get it. Then how to take over other publishers. It was all sex and money and power.

"Our parents did not approve, and Charles became estranged from us. When our parents died there was no reason to re-establish contact, so we continued to grow apart. What we knew of him came from newspaper coverage and television profiles.

"Knowing his basic nature, and how he walked the edge of both law and good manners and abused both…..I was not surprised to learn how he died. Perhaps I had half expected this for a long time. That a victim of his would finally retaliate."

He looked keenly at Sherlock Holmes but did not comment or pass judgement.

"I killed your brother."

The bald statement of those four words was met with calm acceptance.

"I know. I knew before I agreed to see you. Pedder told me." He paused. "Pedder also told me you were a good man with no alternative. I accepted that. Now I see he was right. That you are a good man. Brave. Moral. Highly intelligent."

"Thank you."

"Do not thank me for seeing. Being brave can leave you open to danger. Being moral can make you act, regardless of that danger. Being intelligent gives no excuse of ignorance. Being an ignorant coward would provide it's own protection. Better for you."

"Indeed so."

Johan Magnussen was a surprise, Sherlock Holmes decided.. A refreshing one.

"It may be you were targeted because of me. To torment my conscience by punishing the blameless. The man who attacked you was a close colleague of Charles. Resents me for having killed him."

"I should blame you for that? No, I cannot. Charles was an embarrassment all my life. I have not his ambitions nor his morals. This will be the last thing of him to blight my life. So be it."

"Does Pedder share your view?"

"I do not know. I expect so. We are not especially close. Like Charles, Pedder is a businessman. Objective. He will understand we are better off without Charles, judge that loss coldly."

"You will inherit and share Charles's fortune. You will be a rich man."

"And do I care about that? I have all I need in life, Mr Holmes. Money does not interest me much. If it did I would be a businessman also."

"There is nothing your brother's money will do for you?"

"A conservatory perhaps. A nice holiday. A trust fund for my daughters. " he shrugged. "Nothing more I can think of."

"What happens if Charles' colleague confronts you again?"

"How do I know? The man is nothing to me. Nor his motives. I do not know how to protect myself, I have never need to learn. If he is intent on killing me, I doubt I can stop him."

"If you have any suspicions, see anyone following you, threatening you, you will call the police?"

"Yes. Does that reassure you?"

There was no answer except yes. Sherlock Holmes said the word and stood to leave. There was nothing more he could say now he recognised the passive calm of Johan Magnussen, so different in all ways to his strong passionate brothers.

As he stood to leave, a white van drove up to the house and stopped. It bore the decoration of fat purple daisies on the side, the name and address of a local florist.

Johan Magnussen followed Sherlock Holmes' line of vision, spotted the van. And he grinned.

"Ah! Flowers! Some of my students said they were going to buy me flowers…" and he moved towards the door just as a man in a white jacket emerged from the passenger seat of the van clutching a large spray of flowers. Chrysanthemums and carnations, roses and stephanotis, white flowers and greenery.

"No, Johan. Let me answer the door! Stay back!"

"Do not be so fearful, Mr Holmes. It is just flowers…."

He did not stop moving, crossed the room and was opening the door before Sherlock could stop him or get in front of him.

"No! There's something wrong! Stay back!"

o0o0o

"Florist's van," John Watson said, seeing the purple daisies on the side as the van pulled to a halt.

"Get well flowers for the invalid," Piet Bruhl agreed.

They both remained where they were, quiet and relaxed, as a young man in a white coat got out of the passenger seat, carefully and awkwardly holding a large bunch of mixed flowers with both hands.

They watched him walk up the garden path. Looked at the van as the driver remained at the wheel, engine running, eyes not on his delivery colleague, but deliberately facing front.

"Something's not right." John Watson said, voice low and urgent. "Something…there's danger…."

And he was sliding from his seat until stopped abruptly by Piet Bruhl grasping his arm, slopping the coffee from his mug and not even noticing.

"Wait! For safety's sake! Just - wait!"

o0o0o

Johan flung the front door open. The young man on the doorstep grinned at him.

"Flowers for Hr Magnussen," he said politely.

"That is me," Johan confirmed. Grinned back. Raised both hands to take the flowers.

Still smiling into the older man's eyes, the delivery man made a sudden, focussed flurry of movement.

"You didn't get my message first time, did you? Even when I spelled it out for you. Too bad. Die, dickhead!"

The young mans hands separated. The left hand whipped the flowers away. Revealing the right hand holding a long thin stiletto, that flickered light from the shining blade as it turned.

Turned and angled and thrust up under Johan Magnussen's raised arms to slash and stab.

There was a sickening sound of something ripping and tearing. Time seemed to suspend for a moment as, arms waving and in the act of falling forward into the blow, Johan was hauled back by his collar and away from the strike.

Without even looking at the target as he thrust the smaller man viciously behind him and onto the floor, Sherlock Holmes stepped into the space he had just created.

"Not so fast," he said calmly.

Glass grey eyes met deep brown.

"Well! Look who it ain't! Two for the price of one. Must be my lucky day!"

The misericorda flashed again, and Sherlock blocked the move with his left arm, deflecting the blow, trusting the thick wool of the Belstaff would protect him.

White hot anger - at the strike, at his failure to recognise the attack sooner, to stop Johan presenting himself as a victim, to stop this happening - filled his brain. The parries he made were pure instinct as his brain stuttered and failed him for two fifths of a second.

There was another slash. He felt the air move against his torso, the whisper of a touch against the Royal Oxford cotton of his shirt. Then he felt the cloth parting and smelt the hot metallic smell of fresh blood. His blood.

He shouted. Roared some noise. Clutched for Enrico Baldissi and clutched air. As he tried to run and catch, but fell and twisted, he saw the back of Baldissi. Baldissi running. Running down the garden path.

… _like a teddy bear….._ he thought inconsequentially.

He landed on his knees, and registered that hurt. Put one hand to his side and saw it come away with blood on the fingers.

"Fuck! Stupid…stupid…." he twisted where he knelt, holding the door jamb for support. The Belstaff folded and settled around him, and he could see nothing, feel nothing, of any damage to himself.

But as he turned to look at Johan Magnussen he saw more blood. Lots of blood. Puzzled pale blue eyes blinking at him, more in surprise than pain or fear.

"It's OK., Johan," he said automatically. As he did so he watched the eyes flicker and close, the body give a little spasm. "Johan!"

He climbed up the door jamb, hand over hand, until upright. Ignored the groaning sound he was making and pretended it was Johan Magnussen.

A deep breath, and he staggered away from the security of the doorway. Looked up to see John Watson and Piet Bruhl out of the Saab and running. One step.

Registered the squeal of tyres as the white van with the purple daisies sped away.

 _Florists vans do not have a driver! Not a driver and a deliverer! Not ever! Why had he not realised that simple thing earlier? Had understood the warning his instincts had been giving him?_

 _Why so stupid?_ _Always so slow and so stupid?_

He wobbled down the path _\- shock, just shock, not damage. Not damage at all!_

Second step. Waved an arm. Saw red on his hand. On both hands as he clutched his left side.

"You won't catch them on foot! Get after them, Piet!"

They didn't hear him.

 _The shout must have come out as a whisper then, bugger it_!

He made an immense effort.

"Watson! Over here! Now! There's a dead man…..dying man..."

He saw John Watson hesitate. Stop and turn. Pause. Then start running. Towards him, towards the house, towards Johan.

 _That's it, John. Keep coming!_

He was on his knees again. How did that happen? He looked at the clump of wallflowers he had his hands buried in, was wiping the blood onto. Took a huge breath. And stopped moving.

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Authors notes:**

Anderson and Sheppard: Based in Old Burlington Street, one of the most famous Savile Row tailors, established in 1906. Famous for craftsmanship and focus on easy body line, created by a Swede who dressed the great and the good, as well as the likes of Fred Astaire and Gary Cooper.

The Office Of The Representation And Coordination For Combating Traffic In Human Beings, like the OSCE it is part of, a real organisation.

Royal Oxford cotton: the finest grade of a coarse but soft natural cotton shirting. In Oxford shirts, only the thread running one way is coloured, threads running the other way left white, which gives the textured look of the cloth.

' _like a teddy bear:'_ From the children's rhyme. As quoted by Sherlock before.

The snow that brought the UK to a standstill this week was apt reminder of an interview with a great South African theatre designer. We both waded miles through snow into a city centre from opposite directions because neither of us wanted to cancel our appointment. So we sat and dripped snow from our wellies - his borrowed - all over a smart hotel foyer. We laughed a lot. Later, he designed a production of _As You Like It_ for the Royal Shakespeare Company and we laughed a lot together once more as he plundered great Elizabethan portraits at the National Portrait Gallery to inspire his costumes for Shakespeare's characters.

He inspired my name for the youngest Magnussen. Four years gone, four years missed. Thanks for good memories, Johan Engels.


	12. Chapter 12

The Magnusson Legacy

Chapter 12

 _Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action._

 _(Ian Fleming)_

"I want to see him."

"No."

"I want to see _them_ , then."

"No can do."

Detektiv Inspektor Christina Ravn stood in front of Pedder Magnussen, barring his way, arms crossed firmly in front of her. Face carefully neutral. Professional poise strongly in place.

"Your brother's body is going through process. Your sister in law and nieces have been taken into protective custody. This is a live investigation of a serious crime. It is sensitive, wide ranging and being taken very seriously. Information and participation is limited on a need-to-know basis. For safety and security. You need to understand this."

She dipped her head and stepped back a little, closer to the double doors that led to the emergency unit of Aalborg University Hospital, barring the way ever more firmly even as she softened her tone and added:

"I am sorry, Pedder. Later, perhaps. Not my decision. At this point of high sensitivity you are not classified as needing to know."

That extra sentence was to give a little personal comfort to a friend from a professional doing her job; a human touch added to being that professional.

The tall lean man in front of her made a frustrated gesture with his hands, threw his head high. He was taller than the stern younger woman, but not as much taller as he would have liked to be.

"He is my brother!"

She made no reply. She knew.

"Very well." He recognised the impasse. Spoke equally coolly then. "If I am not allowed to see my brother, or to see, or even know, where you have hidden away Britt, Freya and Mai, perhaps you will let me see Sherlock? Allow that at least?"

He watched her stand and think. Then a sharp brief nod.

"Very well. Five minutes only. He is damaged."

"He is always damaged."

He did not notice her sharp look as she leant to one side and pushed open the door of a tiny side ward.

Just a chair, a white locker, and a bed. On that bed, under a plain blue coverlet lying across his lower body, lay Sherlock Holmes. His pale torso was too thin but the musculature was surprisingly well defined; there was a thin shine of sweat on him, and five steri strips closed a long slashing cut across the ribs on the right side that had only recently stopped bleeding.

A strange older, circular mark ( _teeth marks? A bite? Over a scar? How interesting. But. Really?)_ and bruise lay across a small puckered scar in the centre of the chest. Which proved impossible for him to tear his eyes away from.

The ashen face was more Grecian alabaster than humanity, skin too tight over sharp angles of bone, eyes closed. A dirty overcoat with the jacket still worn inside it, as if the garments had been taken off together, and a dove grey bloodied shirt, were tossed untidily across the foot of the bed.

"Afternoon, Pedder," John Watson said mildly from the bedside chair. "Whatever you have to say to Sherlock, make it quick. He's not well."

 _Ah, yes, the little insignificant doctor. Tried his best, apparently. Good he was there. Always there for Sherlock Holmes, though. What else would anyone expect?_

Pedder Magnussen took five steps into the room to stand on the far side of the bed beside Sherlock Holmes' head.

Darted a hand quickly across the body to curve round and onto the damaged ribs. Saw a little bubble of blood push out under the pressure of his fingers, heard the hard rasp of air painfully sucked in. Hypnotic grey eyes flew open to look into his. Blank of expression, too full of pain.

"Oi!" John Watson warned.

"Sorry," the visitor apologised automatically, but did not explain his action. "How are you, Sherlock? Tell me what happened."

Some sort of paroxysm crossed the consulting detective's face. And Pedder Magnussen was fascinated to watch tears form and run unheeded from the corners of his eyes.

"Go away, Pedder. No-one from your family should come within miles of me. I am toxic. I bring death." The voice was unrecognisable.

"Don't be silly, my boy. This was not your fault. Charles' fault, if anyone's. Baldissi's definitely."

"I knew Johan would be targeted. I could not save him. Could not stop that knife…..I am so sorry."

"Nonsense. Nothing you could do. But you are clearly suffering from shock. As well as your own knife wound, of course."

His voice was civilised, a tone of common courtesy. But he could not drag his eyes away from the tears that flowed so freely as if unaware. For this was a man too proud, too self controlled, for tears. Ordinarily.

"Shock and guilt."

The remote voice broke then. The tears flowed faster, and Sherlock Holmes covered his ravaged face with his right arm, exposing and pulling on the cut flesh over his ribs. Another little bubble of fresh blood appeared…then oozed.

John Watson pragmatically caught the arm, wrestled it back down with a doctor's economy of effort and movement.

"I've told you not to do that. You'll start that bleeding again."

"Fucked if I care."

Magnussen watched the anger gather silently on John Watson's face, watched him tense his body, form fists, throw the arm he was holding away from him so it actually bounced on the chest of it's owner.

"Do you mind leaving now?" John Watson asked their visitor with icy politeness. "As you can see, Sherlock is far from well."

Finally he looked away from the man on the bed to the man standing beside it, and Magnussen wondered what he had just missed. Apart from knowing it was something dark and angry and barely controlled.

"Do excuse us. I have an invalid to wrestle into some sort of sense before I kill him," John Watson said in a voice so quiet and tight Magnussen almost flinched from the repressed feeling there. "Christina will keep you updated with what is happening, I am sure."

"Thank you, yes. I will ring you later to see if all is well. Or - ah -somewhat better, at least. Thank you, John."

He nodded and watched without comment as Magnussen ran fingertips lightly down Sherlock's left arm, the arm closest to him. It was cool and tense and very real to his touch.

"Take care of yourself, Sherlock. You did your best. Don't blame yourself."

"And yet I do." Four words spat out, head turned away.

Pedder Magnussen suddenly felt like an intruder, and quietly left the room, closing the door behind him. As he quickly looked back through the service window he saw he was instantly forgotten; saw John Watson put one hand into the centre of the detective's chest and press down, to keep the patient forced flat into the bed through some tremor and thrashing. Saw the doctor's mouth move in speech. Harsh words, if the expression on the face was anything to go by.

Fascinated, yet feeling he had eavesdropped on something very private, he walked away, with a brief lift of the hand to Christina Ravn, still poised in the sterile white corridor, as he went.

o0o0o

"Has he gone?"

The detective tried to sit up, but found himself held down with one strong hand, and not gently.

"Lie back down, you prat. Rest and recover."

"Illogical. You complained when I took my shirt off and got into the bed," Sherlock Holmes protested. Picked his friend's hand off his chest with some force and determination and sat up, wiping the tears from his eyes with nerveless fingers. "Now you complain when I try to get out of it. Do make your mind up."

"I hate the way you do that: cry to order without warning me."

Sherlock Holmes shrugged, unmoved.

"You've seen me do it often enough. Should be used to it by now." He flicked the cover off himself, got off the bed from the opposite side so John Watson could not move and block him, and stop what he was doing.

He had still worn his trousers and socks while under the bedcover. Bent down to put on his shoes and tie the laces with a small grimace as the knife slash resisted the movement, pulled the skin tight again.

"I will never get used to it. "

"You want me to apologise now? When I always made it clear I did not want you here?"

He took three steps, picked up the bloodied shirt, wrinkled his nose fastidiously at it, and put it back on. The dried blood crackled, released it's sour metallic aroma.

"Good job I was there, as it happened," the doctor said, watching this closely. "That you invited me to observe at Johan's house. Didn't expect to have to go into doctor mode, though. It proved useful, you see. Having me there."

"Fair point," Sherlock conceded. "Want a medal?"

He put his left hand inside the shirt. Concentrated on pulling off the steri strips the nurse had just so carefully positioned, and one by one dumped them in the bin by the door. Looked directly at John Watson as he did so, face impassive, eyes full of challenge. Saying nothing.

Put his hand to the knife slash Enrico Baldissi had made in his skin and swiftly ripped his fingernails into the damage. John Watson watched it happen, and restrained both his medical instinct and his humanity to not stop whatever Sherlock Holmes was doing.

But….. _Just stop it!_ The words filled his head so loudly he was surprised they did not jump straight out of his brain into Sherlock's.

Mesmerised, he watched Sherlock Holmes draw his hand away, blood on the hooked fingers, under the nails. Peer at the blood on his fingers, and watch blood begin to seep from the slash again.

"You are an utter bloody madman," John Watson breathed.

"That's why you love me," Sherlock Holmes said dismissively. Buttoned up the shirt and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers. Put his hand to the cut over the shirt, pressed hard, and watched some fresh red blood shine through the dully dried. Let the fresh blood stick the shirt to the skin.

"Excellent," he muttered to himself. Shrugged on the suit jacket and the Belstaff together in one heave that made him suck his lips together in pain.

"No it isn't," John Watson rasped, voice low with suppressed anger. "It bloody isn't."

"Oh, get over it, John. We have already had that argument. "Don't be a bad loser."

"For fuck's sake, Sherlock! What are you planning to do now, you lunatic?"

He had the door open; was about to leave. It was all John Watson could do to stop himself leaping forward and wrestling Sherlock to the ground.

He paused and looked back. The brief grin on his face was both savage and determined.

"I am injured. Mortally injured. I am bleeding to death. So I am going to crawl away to die. The way of all lone animals. Ready to be picked off. Obviously. 'Night!"

He did that click wink thing he had done at Bart's, on the very first day they met. John Watson had never seen him do it since, not until now. He fiercely - _fiercely -_ hoped that in years to come he would get to see him do that again. Gave a hard grin in reply despite himself.

But there was nothing more he could say or do. He took a deep breath and sank down into the edge of the empty bed. Out of energy suddenly. Assimilating the day.

o0o0o

He had been out of the Saab and running, a fifth of a second behind Piet Bruhl. A Smith and Wesson had appeared as if by magic from under Piet Bruhl's jacket and he was sighting as he ran, ran intent and low, arm extended to fire. Focussed on the van with the purple daisies. As he crouched and pumped out three closely centred shots, he was also shouting:

"Go, doctor!" Then, louder and harder: " _Hold op! Regeringsstyrker!"_ Stop! Government forces!

John Watson ran. A part of his brain - the professional soldier part - admiring the speed and focus of a still battle ready _Jaegerkorps_ colonel. Crossed the road, into the garden of the pretty detached house.

Heard the screech of brakes, of shouting, of chaos unravelling behind him. Chose his focus now, closed down the panic and moved forward to play his own role. Professional and objective, fearful deep in the part of his brain he was ignoring and tuning out.

Sherlock was facing him, half way down the path, on his hands and knees in a flower border where he had gone down, the wool overcoat pooling around him, concealing any damage.

"Johan…." he gasped, lifting his head a little. Raised a hand to wave the doctor on towards the house, to leave him behind. The simple movement collapsed him onto the ground, face buried helplessly in winter flowering wallflowers the colour of dried blood.

In the open doorway of the house, lying in a heap, was a chubby youngish man with sandy blond hair, a light gauze dressing on his forehead.

 _Oh, yes. D.I.E. had been carved into his forehead. Micro abrasion removed it. Unimportant. In the current scheme of things._

"I'm a doctor, Johan. It's OK. Listen to me. Let me see. Help me to help you."

The familiar words came out of his mouth automatically. His hands reached down. The victim's eyes were closed, face grey, and blank with shock or worse. Smart casual clothes. Blue sweater over a blue twill shirt, expensive jeans, brown leather loafers.

Chunky capable looking hands clenched the sweater front centre right over the inevitable clean tear.

 _The cleaner the cut the sharper the knife. Dear Lord._

The strike had meant to impact under the ribcage and rise up into the heart, but had struck off centre and clearly at a flatter angle than intended. Because of Sherlock? Probably. That gag making, too familiar, sweet metallic smell of blood swamped his hands - both their hands now - dripped from the sweater, onto the floor tiles.

Behind him he could hear running footsteps approaching:

"Get am ambulance! Stat! Now!"

He turned his head slightly, threw the words behind him, vaguely heard mobile phone keys clicking as he took Johan Magnussen by the shoulders and gently turned and straightened him, half in - half out of his own hallway,

Gathered himself at what he saw. Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.

 _Battlefields are not just hot deserts. Death comes on quiet suburban streets as birds sing and children play….._

 _Stop it! There lies madness! Concentrate!_

He put his hands down into the growing cascade of shining sticky hot blood. A doctor as ever.

o0o0o

Christina Ravn was leaning on the corridor wall opposite as Sherlock Holmes left the side ward.

"You're not fit to go anywhere."

"Shut up."

"Seriously, Sherlock. I'm not being a nagging woman here. But you did ring me to get all this -" she gestured vaguely to indicate the general situation they were in the midst of. " - all this circus sorted."

He looked silently down at her. Fiddling with a coat cuff, popping something into his mouth. She was so close to him she heard his teeth crunch on whatever it was.

"If you tell me that was a tictac I may need to believe you."

No reply. No smile. She persisted.

"John is just letting you leave, is he?"

"Be your age."

"Don't," she said, putting a hand on his arm. Vaguely alarmed at how much she cared, despite her profession.

"Don't what?"

"Do whatever you are planning."

"Planned. Long term plan. Only way. When you've already played the three strikes and out rule, there is only the one thing left to do."

His face was blank. Told her nothing. He curved away from her restraining hand, and she watched him walk firmly away. Start to sway into a weaving walk that was too loose. And it alarmed her that she could not tell if he was acting or if it was real.

"Sherlock!" she could not help herself from calling him back, but fought to keep the fear out of her voice. He half turned back to her, looking over his shoulder, but did not stop.

"Are you coming….home…tonight?"

"If I can."

"Tell me where you will be."

"I said if I can," he repeated. Voice calm and level, a little peeved at having to repeat himself. Sounding just like himself.

He half raised a hand and walked on. She registered there was blood on the hand and that made her want to run forward, to stop him, to wrap him in her arms until he stopped. Just stopped. Whatever it was he was doing.

Instead, she watched him until he disappeared round a corner. Then made her way back through the double doors behind her.

Reboot. Recalibrate. Professional again. Her own things to do.

o0o0o

Sitting on the now empty bed as she passed the door and flicked him a glance, John Watson braced his hands on his thighs, sagged forward and tried to calm his breathing and his brain.

That had all been….too much. Every minute of that day had been too much. The images behind his eyes continued to impose themselves in a way they so rarely did….

Hands working with automatic urgency on Johan Magnussen, he had looked up into the hot honey brown eyes of Piet Bruhl. The gun had gone now, the telephone returned to a pocket.

"What can I do?" he asked. Ignored, he rapped out: "John!"

"You lost the bastard?" Watson looked up at Bruhl, asked his own question low and incredulous.

"Shot out the tyres and stopped the van; but it is school collection time. A neighbour had just turned into her drive with her three kids; perfect for Baldissi and his mate to hijack their car, impossible for me to shoot with them as his shield.

"Touch and go there for a minute. Fortunately he did not take her or the kids hostage. Not terribly bright, is he? Poor woman is now in her house having hysterics." He shrugged. "Casualty of war. She'll get over it.

"So yes. I lost him. Baldissi has the luck of the devil." He repressed the shudder of anger that went through him, looked objectively down at the victim on the ground. "I have rung for police and an ambulance. Major incident, code red. Minutes, perhaps. Have we lost Johan? Can you keep him alive until?"

"Trying," John Watson rasped. Hands, eyes, brain, more than busy. "Knife wounds are a bugger; you can never see much, it's all internal." He muttered something else under his breath, then spoke more loudly, asking without looking. "Sherlock…?"

"Wait," Bruhl said.

He moved away five paces. Looking up a little, John Watson could see behind him and through the hall mirror inside the house, that Sherlock had still not moved beyond heaving back up to his knees. Still with the Belstaff enveloping his body mass and his face hidden, head low to the ground.

Heard Piet Bruhl say his name, ask if he was hurt; get no reply. Bruhl put out a foot, placed it on Sherlock's shoulder and pushed. The Belstaff and it's contents fell to one side. Bruhl squatted down, put out his hands to have them brushed away by a protesting arm. There was a short exchange, and Bruhl came back.

"He's hurt but says he's OK. Says I should piss off, intercept Mrs Magnussen and her two little girls before they return home and see all this. Spirit them straight away to safety. He's right. I'll go catch them before they get here, speak to Christina and get that sorted. You OK with all this?"

At that moment, as John Watson grunted a yes, they both heard the distant wail of klaxon and siren approaching - ambulance and police. They nodded to each other in a sort of relief.

"You'll all be taken to University Hospital - not far. I'll be there."

And he was gone.

John Watson looked up. Cursed and waited.

o0o0o

Three hours grace, he had given John Watson. Three hours while he did things he had to do before he reached John Watson at Johan Magnussen's house.

Three hours was all it took for everything to go wrong. To explode and expand and rip away all the certainties and the simplicity from this task he had set himself.

His own promise, and Chris Walsh's telephone call, took him back to his promised destination. To Alyssa Almedova, to Marco de Bono, to the masterclasses and the Guarneri.

He was angry. He had to kill that anger. Regain his normal impassive and resolute self. To do what he had to do.

And yet….if he allowed himself to have any feelings on the matter, ant feelings at all, he could allow himself to feel hurt and betrayed and disillusioned. Disillusioned from all sides.

Not from his enemies, for they were there to make him suffer. Idiots like Baldissi and his evil little cousins and their petty revenge made their intentions very clear. Their campaign of revenge for his killing of Charles Augustus Magnussen. To make him hurt and suffer and then die; preferably in as humiliating a way as possible. And to take as many people as possible with him.

People he knew. People he had sworn to protect. And people, for seven fleeting days, he had thought he had saved. And now had to save them all over again. Quickly, now. Before collateral damage became the norm.

But also, and most deeply, he was disillusioned by those who were supposed to be his allies. Friends. Family, even.

John Watson, who would not leave him alone to do his work. Who followed and questioned and harried. Trying - far too late in the day - to find who he was, how and why he had left his heart behind him, and where he had left it.

 _As if he wanted that! Or wanted it back!_

For he knew those answers. All of them. And more than twenty years on, they were still no-one else's property, no-one else's business but his own.

Mycroft, who had been at the back of it all. Hindering rather than helping, expecting miracles yet withholding trust, demanding the impossible while never facilitating possibility. And surrounding everything with his pall of power and politics and dispassion. Interference and ignominy and intrusion and intervention. Internecine, incestuous, infernal…

He got a grip on his anger with an effort. The sense of betrayal on entering Piet Bruhl's house to find it full of whispering men who were supposed to aid and abet him, men he was supposed to like and trust. Powerful men who were being oppressive and secretive when they looked at him. But still expected him - him alone, and all alone - to work miracles, pull rabbits out of hats. Disappear the elephant in the room.

The mirror behind the mirror and the mirror behind that. _Who wrote that?_

 _The mystery that was the mystery behind Enrico Baldissi. Even when he was still Harry Baldwin. The mystery of the four rapists he could neither put behind him nor recover from. Almost a year ago now, yet still it burned._

 _Oh, recover he would. He would put his mind to that. But not yet. Not yet, not while he needed the anger the humiliation, the pain and the degradation to fuel him._

 _Watson thought it was tackling impossible odds, arrogance and the pride of winning that fuelled him. Mycroft thought it was the challenge of expectation, of sibling rivalry, of needing to be always right and always win that fuelled him. His parents thought it was his unparalleled and particular brain. And as for the rest…they thought it was because he was arrogant, psychopathic, sociopathic, virgin, repressed, repulsed, retarded, a freak._

 _No-one had a clue. Thank God._

o0o0o

This time Marco de Bono was ready for him as he entered the hall where that day's master class was being held. Came forward to him - the eyes of the two men met and joined - and both waited patiently while Alyssa gave Sherlock Holmes her usual effusive greeting.

"What have you done today without me, _moy geroy_ Sherlock Holmes?" she asked, kissing his mouth, stroking his neck in a way no-one else would ever dare.

"Nothing of any interest. But I am not your hero, _moya krasavitsa._ My beautiful girl."

Her laughter was delicious. Her eyes were full of fire. And the slim slender hands that coaxed magic out of music caressed softness out of the frigidity of his face.

 _It would be so easy to fall. She is beautiful, intelligent, talented and loving. She is entranced by me. She could find me my heart. If I let her._

 _If I was so stupid. So ordinary. So normal. Oh, so bloody normal._

He untangled himself from her arms with a bright smile to ease the withdrawal.

"Take your class. I will talk to Marco, if I may?"

She beamed at him.

"Yes. I would like for you to be friends."

He closed his teeth to stop himself parroting the usual reply - "I don't have friends" - and smiled in a way that looked charming but if he had seen it would have John Watson threatening to punch him.

He made his way round the outside aisle of the hall, bypassing chairs and young musicians, disgarded bags and violin cases, and was aware that Marco de Bono was watching him with hotly focussed eyes.

"Can we have a word? Out of the way of the class?" Sherlock asked, a nicely spoken courtesy edged with steel.

The manager nodded, gestured them both towards an office at the rear of the stage and closed the door carefully behind them. Shutting them in together and alone in the small space and it's silence.

Before Sherlock could say a word, Marco de Bono hurried to speak first.

"I have been checking up on you. I have seen you on YouTube. Playing the violin. A Guarneri, just like Alyssa said. Playing a Baroque sonata by Jean Marie Le Clair. In public."

His voice was hurried and nervous, hands restless.

"Yes."

Sherlock Holmes kept his voice carefully neutral. Unsure where this conversation was going.

 _The charity event at the West End hotel. When he had answered Lestrade's appeal to stand in for the speaker who had broken something skiing and had to pull out at the last minute._

 _So he had made a rare public appearance playing his favourite violin. To avoid having to make a speech. And the repercussions of that….the way that music had seduced and charmed Charles Augustus Magnussen And how that had led to rape and revulsion, investigation and involvement, suicide and shame and shootings, powerful women and pretence…..and how he had nearly died and learnt the true definition of friendly fire….._

For a few seconds he was lost in a tumult of memory, came back to Marco de Bono with a jolt of realisation. He was talking. Not expressing jealousy or complaining. Something else…

"That was exceptional playing. How I would love to be able to play myself. And I realised - finally believed - that what Alyssa said about you was true. So then I looked you up on the internet. So many crimes solved! Read your webpage, your case history blog. And I finally realised Alyssa was not just raving with love and exaggerating about her latest infatuation.

"With you it is true and proper. And you are a real danger."

Sherlock Holmes frowned; that tell tale furrow appeared across the bridge of his nose.

"A danger? I am no danger to Alyssa. I don't understand."

"Is that false modesty? Or are you just having a joke at our expense?"

"No. You are going to have to explain it to me."

Marco de Bono laughed. Finally saw that Sherlock Holmes did not get the joke, and sat down in an office chair opposite the taller man.

"You really don't get it? This great crime solving brain of yours doesn't get it?" He stopped. Watched Sherlock Holmes slowly shake his head without smiling.

"Are you a freak or something? You are tall dark and handsome. You save Alyssa from robbery and murder or even worse. You become her hero. And if that is not enough - you also play the bloody violin! To concert soloist standard! And you have your own bloody Guarneri violin!

"And then, as if you are not already perfect enough for her, you converse in Russian! How does anyone else in the world have a chance against you?"

The detective was still standing with his hands in his pockets, face expressionless except for that slight frown. Quiet and unnaturally still.

"I don't understand. Is this a competition of some sort?"

Marco de Bono took a moment to absorb what he was seeing and hearing. Which was nothing. Just a man distracted and his mind elsewhere, lost in more important matters than music and self image.

"Not exactly." he sighed. Realised he would have to spell this out carefully.

"Alyssa is a musical prodigy; a genius. Her musicality and her emotions are strong, as is her mainspring of achievement and her own identity. So when she meets someone special -someone who either does not know her unique abilities, or just does not care, because he has them himself - then she is charmed. But she is especially charmed by you because you not only saved the life of the girl, but you understand and stand at a level with her heart as a musician."

"Yes." Flatly. Factual agreement. Neither modesty nor self deprecation.

"So you are very special to her. In the mere days she has known you she has fallen head over heels in love. With you."

"That is not possible." The voice was appalled. "How did that happen?"

"Just you being you. I think."

Marco de Bono smiled then. This degree of puzzlement could not be a joke. No-one could maintain such an impression of emotional idiocy and immaturity. Or would want to.

The consulting detective stood and looked into the other man's face for a long time.

"You did not trust," he deduced. "Trust that I really had saved her from something. Trusted my motives."

"No. I didn't. I am sorry."

"That makes sense. You are her manager. It is your job. It is in your interest to protect her. But there is more. Yes?"

"No."

"Yes. Ah." He paused, and looked, and to de Bono it seemed as if a laser had been suddenly turned on, or a computer brought online. He ducked his head against the penetrating surveillance.

"You are in love with her yourself. You try not to be, because it is such a cliché. The manager and the talent, the older man, the younger girl. The dark and handsome male and the fair and winsome female. You fight it, deny it. But the attraction does not go away.

"So you are authoritative and bossy. You fight. About music, work, performance, about life. You cannot get out of this cycle. You start to mistrust each other. And I come along and be the catalyst that makes it all suddenly so much worse."

"You know, then. Know it all."

"Of course. That is what I do."

"Wow. I mean…how?"

"I am a genius too. In my own way. It's just not Alyssa's way."

There was a sudden flash of a boyish smile, and de Bono found himself smiling back.

"You must try to contain your feelings. To all but Alyssa. Form a team of two against the world. Win her from the inside. You give the wrong impression to people. It does not help you."

"I gave you the wrong impression."

"Yes." The was a pause for thought. A long pause. And Marco de Bono automatically braced himself for what was to come.

"I know your name. I know the name of your family. I know the criminal connections you have. I thought you were another de Bono that was following the Messina branch of the family within the Mafia. Are you telling me that I have misjudged you?"

Sherlock Holmes watched the Maltese manager put his head into his hands and drag a sigh up from around his feet.

"Have I offended you?" the question was merely curiosity, and had no apology or empathy within it.

"No. Not quite. I am used to it. Just have not had to explain….for a long time."

"Then please do."

Sherlock Holmes sat down. Leant back in the hard chair opposite de Bono's own, crossed his legs and twitched the creases carefully out of his elegant trouser legs. Waited.

"I have always known about my infamous cousins. My own family would never talk about them. They had stayed at home and ran the village bakery while the brighter and braver members of the family joined the…" he hesitated over the words. Did not say Mafia. "… _cosca._ Joined the _Cosa Nostra._ Our family, our group. Our thing. You understand what I am talking about?"

"Of course."

"For generations my side of the family were proud to be honest and ordinary and hard working. Such a simple ambition. But for other less upright cousins this was almost a source of shame. Do you understand? These cousins blackmailed and bullied and murdered, and hid behind the respectable family front we gave at our bakery.

"There was much tension in the family. The tolerance snapped when cousin Guiseppe and two of his brothers joined the _Mano Nero_ in America. The Black Hand gang. You know of it?"

"Yes."

"The boys were involved in blackmailing for money. Finally they targeted a big man. Caruso. Enrico Caruso. The greatest singer who ever lived! Who had his career blighted by members of our family. The shame of it!"

Marco de Bono spoke as if this had happened yesterday, not ninety years before.

"On my side of the family you must understand we did two things. We made bread and we made music. This has always been our lives. Singers, musicians, choristers in church. And my cousins were threatening the greatest musician, the greatest Italian of all. The shame was finslly too much.

"My great grandfather made a momentous decision. Rather than allowing the cousins to hide behind our respectability any longer, he sold the bakery. The family left Sicily. We went our various ways. Spain, Scotland, Malta. As bakers, café owners, gelatto makers…..

"Great grandfather chose music and honesty and casting his family wide to dissipate the shame and the connection. None of us have ever regretted his decision. Apart from that part of the family we were ashamed of anyway. Who have always been ashamed of us for being honest and ordinary." He shook his head.

"But the blackness sticks to the name. For there is always someone who knows enough of the story to judge. Like you do."

"I don't judge you. Your family chose music. You chose music How many dare do that?" Sherlock Holmes paused. "I didn't."

Marco de Bono stopped looking at his feet. Saw a slight smile in the grey compulsive eyes opposite him.

"I thought you were a criminal. Does the guilt and the hyper sensitivity of being in love always give other people that impression?"

The question was asked in all seriousness, and he seemed surprised when Marco de Bono leapt to his feet, burst out laughing and slapped him on the back.

"Yeah, it just might!"

He allowed the taller man to turn away, frowning. He did not understand Sherlock Holmes, but he was getting used to his disconcerting presence.

"I have no intention to take Alyssa away from you. But I needed to be close to her. For a while. To learn. I shall soon disentangle myself from her without hurting her. Is that enough for you?"

"We shall see - but thank you for saying that." Despite himself he added: "You are an exceptional violinist. But you could have just been honest. She would still have been flattered."

"Indeed. Perhaps." He lifted his head in thought. "So now tell me about this programme of master classes. And how Alyssa came to have Pedder Magnussen's Holderness Guarneri? And how much contact he has with you - as her musical benefactor."

And so they sat back. And had coffee. And talked. While Alyssa Almedova taught young violinists how to make a lark ascend in the sky. And to play a concerto Mendelssohn wrote when only thirteen years of age.

And that was when all that seemed might go wrong went wrong.

o0o0o

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson sat and looked at each other across the fast moving ambulance as two paramedics worked on Johan Magnussen. Machinery bleeped and whined, with the two attendants busy, speaking low and in Danish the two Englishmen did not understand, working hard, concentrating, doing their job.

The shirt and sweater had been cut off the victim. The naked torso looked pale and vulnerable. The site of the devastating injury so small. John Watson remembered Sherlock Holmes' words in Angelo's restaurant about a misericorda and the internal damage it could do in the hand of an expert.

John Watson could not look. He had seen Sherlock Holmes laid in an ambulance just like this, after his own wife had just shot his best friend. To be in another ambulance, dealing with another murderous strike was…too much. Even with Sherlock Holmes sitting beside him and relatively undamaged this time.

He looked at Sherlock Holmes instead of at the patient. Sherlock Holmes sitting up in his big Belstaff coat, looking pale, looking hurt, but not allowing him to see the damage. Sherlock looked back with nothing in his eyes but dispassionate anger.

He had refused to allow John Watson to tend his own knife wound; had pushed him away and kept saying "just a scratch…." and was now hunched forward, Belstaff tucked close around him, arms wrapped around that.

"I saw you on an ambulance trolley looking just like this," John Watson said, voice low and tremulous with anger; it was an accusation. "Just as damaged. As close to death. Did you know this was going to happen to Johan? Made it happen?"

"Of course not. I did not know Baldissi would turn up. When there was a knock on the door I tried to stop Johan answering it. He wouldn't listen to me. People don't listen to me enough." The look he gave his friend was disillusioned, piercing. "You know that."

"What are you doing, Sherlock? What are you really doing?"

"Getting the bad guy. Same as always. Why do you need to ask?"

Before John Watson could reply they arrived at the hospital, into an ambulance bay. The rear doors opened to a reception team. There was hurry and efficiency and professional calm.

The doctor and the detective were almost forgotten in the urgency of the moment and the true focus. Watson put a hand out to help Sherlock Holmes from the ambulance, and just for once Sherlock Holmes let him. Sat without resistance in a wheelchair held by a porter.

Inside the hospital doors Christina Ravn was waiting for them, brisk and expressionless, and escorted them to a small and Spartan side ward.

"Someone will be along to attend to you," she said. "Please wait here. I need to see what is happening to Hr Magnussen. I will be back. OK?"

They both nodded.

The silence in the little room was deafening. Sherlock Holmes, moved from the wheelchair onto the edge of the bed, his back to the doctor, and when the chair was whisked away spoke again.

"For God's sake, will you stop trying to think? The noise is killing me."

Without answering directly, John Watson came round the bed to face him, crouched down before him so he could not be ignored. He exuded anger and purpose and professionalism.

"Let me see the damage," he said. "Let me deal with it."

"No. Not your problem." He looked up, wrapped his arms tighter about himself. "Anyway, you are covered in Johan Magnussen's blood. Go and clean yourself and be human again."

As he spoke a nurse entered the little room with a rattling trolley of items for dealing with all ills.

"Hr Holmes?" she asked. "A minor laceration, yes? A knife wound?"

"How is the man who came in with me? Hr Magnussen?"

"Too early to say," she replied diplomatically. Glanced across at John Watson, saw the blood on him. "You are hurt too?"

"No. I was…." he sought words that would be brief enough. "I was just….there… when the incident occurred. Emergency, first doctor on scene attending, you might say."

"In that case go and wash. Catch your breath. Eat or drink something. Good for shock."

This time he accepted dismissal when he heard it. Nodded sharply, turned and left. Seeking a washroom along the anonymous corridors.

Fifteen minutes later, clean again and refreshed, calm and determined, he was back at the little side ward.

Peering silently through the service window in the door he could see Sherlock Holmes. Alone now. Sitting in the same place on the edge of the bed, facing the wall, but now with his upper body bare and the flickering knife slash over his lower ribs cleaned and boasting five steri strips holding the edges closed. A clean used dressing at his side.

His head was bent, shoulders curved in, and he was slowly kneading his right wrist with his left hand. For a moment John Watson paused. Pushed down a sudden feeling of fear seeing Sherlock naked and so vulnerable, and felt like a voyeur before he steeled himself to burst through the door and into the room as Sherlock dropped both hands into his lap and slowly turned his head to look at him.

"Hurt often, do they? Those scarred wrists?" The words came out sharper than intended, sharpened with concern and fear at the sight of such vulnerability - any vulnerability - from Sherlock Holmes.

"Sometimes. Can't help it. I'm sorry." The strange humility in the voice frightened John Watson more than anything else so far that day.

"Nothing to be sorry about. Tell me about them. It's about time."

He stood in front of him again, dropped back into a crouch again. Lower than those silver eyes; at a level with the wrists in question. Took them into his own hands in some instinctive need to give succour and support.

But the hands were immediately tugged gently from his grasp, and fell into a cross, palms up, back in Sherlock Holmes' lap. As they must have been when the scars were made.

"No. I don't go back there. " The voice was quiet but firm, almost remote. There was a pause. "Animals in traps and snares have been known to chew off their own captive limb to escape and survive. Humans …..it doesn't work. "

A pause John Watson could not broach.

"Have you been restrained like this?" That soft vague voice could have been asking about the weather. " Outside army training? For real, I mean? Can't wash like this. Eat with cutlery. Can't pee without asking help from someone else's hands. Can't protect…..hmn.

"Worst is being hooked up like this, arms above your head. Or untied for reasons you don't want. Then tied back up again in the same wet and bloody shoelaces over the same wet and bloody…"

"What are you trying to tell me?"

"Nothing at all. Just…reflecting."

"Then stop torturing yourself."

"I'm not." The voice was dead calm, deader than neutral. "This is just data, John. You did ask."

"What happened to you? Those two weeks after you were taken. Tell me, Sherlock. What happened?"

For a second the shoulders braced back.

"Who told you anything happened? Ah. Of course. Mycroft challenged you to find out who I am and has been pushing you. Directing you where to look. That's it, isn't it? So you have spoken to our parents?"

He shook his head, reading silence as admission.

"They can't help you. I never told them. Never told Mycroft. Mycroft is pushing you in the hope that I will tell you if I tell anyone. So then you tell him. Machiavellian of him. But he, and they, know I won't. No point in distressing them. Or you."

"Distressing yourself. "

"I don't get distressed. Distress is just sentiment poked with a stick. Nothing changes the past. Pointless to resurrect it. I'm not that person any more. Didn't happen to me. "

"To William. Not Sherlock."

"Precisely." He nodded firmly, looked up from under his lashes, eyes impassive." William died a long time ago. I told you before. You know it anyway. No-one made me. I made me. A new me from the ruins of the old. William deleted. For the best, John."

"Unfinished business, though."

"Not at all. A bricked up door."

"Closed on darkness. Not open to daylight and fresh air."

"Sentimental claptrap." He sighed and shook his head. "Stop chasing me down, John. This is not about me."

"You think it's about _me?_ Because we haven't been right since you came back from the dead? Because _you_ haven't been right?"

"What about you? With your new ordinary self and your not-so-ordinary pregnant wife? Look at yourself. There's nothing wrong with me. I died to save you. I came back to save you. I am just the same. The problem has always been yours."

"You mean Mary is the problem? Mary and me?"

"That's up to you to decide."

"You total bastard…"

"I'm not. _I'm not._ I saved you three years ago by jumping off a roof, and I saved you and Mary at Appledore. And now I'll save you again."

"Thanks a lot. A bloody martyr for a best friend is all I need."

"No-one asked you to be my best friend. I don't have friends. But you started this. You killed to save me. I didn't ask you to. But because of that I still owe you my life. Always will. Is that too hard for you to understand?."

John Watson surged to his feet, deeply hurt and deeply angry, hands rising, and would have slapped Sherlock Holmes …if it had nor been for the interruption of the ward door opening.

"Time I intervened, I think, don't you?"

Alfredo Catalani stood in the doorway, watching them with dark eyes that missed nothing.

"Don't want you to come to blows. Waste of energy."

"Go away." Sherlock Holmes' naked snarl would have frightened off a lesser man. "Unless you want to tell me why you are suddenly so interested in me and what I am doing."

"That would be too easy," was the unoffended smiling reply. And a change of subject, a change of tone.

"How long is it since you ate something? Drank?"

"I don't remember."

"OK. Back in five." he stepped back into the corridor and started to walk away. Turned back with a grin. "Don't punch each other while I'm gone. I wouldn't want to miss that."

There was a brief silence in which Sherlock Holmes did not look at or speak to John Watson, and John Watson felt his own anger cool so quickly it made him dizzy.

"What's wrong with us these days, Sherlock? What are we doing here? And why can't you just leave Baldissi to the police? "

He flinched away from himself to hear the baffled plea in his voice. Saw his friend register the tone and simply narrow his eyes into glass hard pebbles.

"Because he is my problem. Because I am his target. He has had me in his hands three times now and three times he has let me live to torment me. It is my fault this has happened to Johan. My problem to solve. Not yours.

"You are supposed to be safe in London. Supposed to have taken the hint to stay…not a very subtle hint….when I drugged you."

"Oh yeah? When have little details like that stopped me?"

A ghost of a smile between them.

"Seriously, Sherlock. You are going to do this? Be the bait to lure Baldissi to you so you can get him?"

"Can't think of any other way. Can you? I thought that was all it is. But there's something more….."

John Watson thought of Mycroft Holmes' words. Closed his teeth to stop explanation coming out.

"What makes you think that?"

Sherlock Holmes waved a dismissive hand.

"No time to explain. Except to ask why else would my brother and Freddie Catalani be here otherwise? They know something I don't, and I wish to God they would tell me instead of acting like old ladies with the vapours trying to protect a small child." He slammed a hand impatiently into the mattress. "I was not that child when I was that child!"

"Sherlock…."

"So are you going to tell me?"

"I….can't. I don't understand any of it."

"There you go. As I said. I don't have friends." The words would have frozen ice. And there was nothing more to say.

The door opened onto glacial silence and distance.

"That's better," Alfredo Catalani said in a false, encouraging tone.

He had a tray in his hands. He passed John Watson a large coffee in a polystyrene cup and a pastry enfolded in a napkin.

To Sherlock Holmes he handed a large glass of orange juice and an identical pastry.

"Drink," he instructed.

Sherlock Holmes took the glass but left the pastry on the coverlet by his side. Held it up to the light and peered at it.

"It has bits in it," he said petulantly.

Catalani gave a small laugh. "Of course it has. They put bits in to make cheap concentrate look fresh and ready squeezed. Just drink the stuff."

"And what happens if I don't?"

"You won't be very healthy. For long."

Even John Watson could tell the words were heavy with meaning. Two tall dark handsome men looked at each other. But it was Sherlock Holmes who laughed suddenly in a mercurial change of mood.

"You don't look like a good fairy."

"I don't dance like one either, _Idiota_ ,"

The smile on the lips of the consulting detective seemed to linger even as he drank the orange juice with deep concentration, his eyes never leaving Catalani's face as he did so.

"Good boy," said the Italian, taking the empty glass from his hands and returning it to the tray. "That was easy, wasn't it?"

"Thank you," Sherlock Holmes said politely. Then said it again. Nodding as if with understanding.

Catalani nodded his head in reply, gave a brief pat to the naked shoulder.

"Drink your coffee before it goes cold, Doctor," he said. And left the room.

"OK. What was that about?" John Watson demanded. "You treat me like an idiot, don't you? Secret knowledge, secret bloody conversations….you don't even think aloud at me any more."

"This is not about you. You should not even be here. Remember?"

"Stop shutting me out! Why can't you stop shutting me out? I…"

"Shut up! Someone's coming! I know those footsteps….."

Sherlock Holmes toed the shoes from his feet and was lying in the bed, under the coverlet like a flash.

"What the fuck are you doing getting into bed? With your clothes on? Are you feeling ill? Delayed shock? Did you….?"

"Sit down, shut up and be calm. Remember I am not well."

Obedient without even realising it, John Watson sat down in the chair by the bed. Grasped the chair arms fiercely as he sought for calmness and control. And waited. He could hear the footsteps now…then the sound of a familiar voice. Talking to Christina Ravn.

o0o0o

Think. Walk. Move. Act. Tempt. Entice. Attract. Captivate. Enrapture. Seduce. Oh, sod it, yes. Seduce. No no no. No. _Think!_

It had all gone wrong. So wrong. Combine Enrico Baldissi's self confidence, speed and unpredictability with Harry Baldwin's spiteful little mind and youthful sense of entitlement and disaster beckoned.

To attack Johan again was ridiculous. Logically, any further attack should have gone for Pedder. That was logical, that was escalation, that was inevitable. And yet….perhaps. Perhaps Baldisssi had just taken advantage of a situation that had presented itself.

An empty florist's van in a city street - door open, engine running, the delivery driver in a building. The chance to launch a surprise strike; connecting the thought to the deed that the invalid coming home might be followed by goodwill, get well flowers. From someone - from anyone. A uniform jacket sitting on the passenger seat, a van full of flowers - an opportunity to appear so innocently on the doorstep and be within striking distance.

Enrico Baldissi and his accomplice; whose identity still needed to be found, and quickly. Another naïve young cousin, was it? Or a fully fledged henchman? Another devoted friend/lover/colleague perhaps? Or just a hireling? Or even just a hireling of the man behind the man?

Sherlock Holmes came out of the sleek modernist hospital into a street of quiet white houses with red tiled roofs. The contrast between the angst and horror behind him, and the calm quiet street in front of him, was jarring and surreal.

About to enter the main atrium heading for the exit he had, as if by some extra sensory perception, noticed his brother - suit, tailored covert coat, umbrella - striding into the building through the electronically controlled glass doors two floors below the gallery walkway he was on, face a grim purposeful mask. Sherlock stepped back into shadow, to swerve left and take the stairs instead of the lift.

He would leave Christina Ravn and John Watson to deal with the British government. He had more pressing problems.

But as he stepped sharply backwards he cannoned into another person. Turned to see who would be standing so close, anticipating danger, and found himself looking into the dark gaze of Alfredo Catalani.

"What are you doing here? Following me?"

"Not exactly." A small wise smile. "Why are you trying to avoid your brother?"

"Force of habit, Best in small doses."

"He's trying to look after you. Help you."

I agree he likes to give that impression."

"You blame him for all this?"

Sherlock stepped away from the older man who was too close, too focussed.

"We have a symbiotic relationship. More parasitic on his part than commensal."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I slay his dragons for him. Except when he is the dragon."

"And how do you tell the difference?"

"The same way I don't trust what you are doing here. How you got involved in this."

Alfredo Catalani stepped to the side to look with concentration at the man in front of him.

The all enveloping coat showed muddy patches, the knees of the elegant dark suit grass stained. The expensive fitted shirt gaped from a knife slash and was encrusted with blood. Blood - fresh blood - stained Sherlock Holmes' hands in a way they had not when he was in the side ward, and his face was paler than usual, dark smudges under overbright storm grey eyes.

"Are you OK?"

"Don't change the subject. Tell me how you got involved in this."

The harsh implacable voice coming out of such fragility convinced Catalani lies and obfuscation would not do, that honesty was the only way to deal with this man.

"We have a mutual friend. Who knew I was in London and asked me to check up on you. By coincidence, the night Enrico Baldissi pulled the taxi stunt."

"So I need to thank you for stopping him that night. And also to thank….." the voice hesitated to allow thoughts to process. " the lady in question."

"Which lady would that be?"

"There are two possibilities. Both well placed to know who you are and to be able to call upon you. But only one of the ladies has a daughter who is now in danger from Baldissi. Also I have looked you up, Mr Catalani. I know what you do.

"So be good enough to remind me to Maggie Driscoll. She will know I owe her a favour."

"Owe her? Not me?"

There was a brief, concentrated pause.

"Not you, no. Because you have your own motives. You think I am leading you where you want to go."

"Are you?"

"Possibly. Probably." Sherlock Holmes looked away, towards the heavens for inspiration, or simply to turn his eyes away from being read. "I need more data. I am amassing it….is that good enough for you? "Enough to ensure you watch my back? Or do you want me to do the whole job for you? Catch your villain for you? Rather than just lead you to him?"

"You mean Baldissi?"

"Of course I don't mean Baldissi. Baldissi is a witless child. Venal, vicious, spiteful. He has his effect. But he is not the man you are looking for. And you know it."

Catalani did not answer directly. Instead counselled:

"Don't get yourself captured. Or killed."

"It doesn't matter if I do either. Because if I do I will stop Baldissi and that will make everyone else safe. And that is fair exchange."

"You are going out there to be bait? "

"Don't be obtuse. It doesn't suit you."

"Then do something for me. Wherever you are, whatever you do. Remember to eat or drink something."

"That nicety may not be possible."

"Try."

Sherlock Holmes nodded and walked away. Paused. Spoke without turning round.

"Keep my brother out of my hair. Stop Watson and Bruhl from trying to help me. I have to do this alone. Cannot be spotted being followed by good guys, or I will lose my advantage."

"Yes. I know. I will do my best. _In bocca al lupo, idiota,_ " Catalani said.

Good luck, you fool!

Stood back and simply watched him leave.

o0o0o

Jarring and surreal…..

Out into the cool winter air. Gather strength, resolve, courage, purpose. And onwards.

Walk. Walk north. No point in taking a taxi. Not much point being safe in a taxi when the idea was to be an injured animal crawling away to be picked off by predators.

 _Come on, young Harry! I'm here! Naked, wounded, vulnerable, alone. You missed your chance to do for me when you went for Johan! So take your second chance now!_

Come and get me!

 _While I'm alone and weak. Weak and willing._

 _Because then - I'll get you._

TO BE CONTINUED…

 **Author's notes:**

Tictac: popular sweets, most usually mints, small and pill shaped.

The Jean Marie Le Clair Violin Sonata referenced by Marco de Bono is played by Sherlock in Chapter One of the prequel to this story, _Things We Lost In The Flames,_ a retelling and extension of S3 E3 _His Last Vow._ by O'Donnell.

Enrico Caruso was indeed blackmailed by _Mano Nero_ when living and working in America, where he was threatened with being made to drink lye to ruin his voice. He paid $2,000 to stop them. The gangsters made a mistake by trying again for a much larger sum. This time Caruso went to the police.

Cosca: a Sicilian family or clan, another word for a basic grouping of Mafia criminals.

On this particular day Alyssa is teaching The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams, first performed in 1920 and inspired by a poem by George Meredith, and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor Opus 64 which he did indeed write when he was only thirteen.

 _Information for readers_ _:_

 _Stories by O'Donnell are posted only on Fan Fiction. They do not appear on any other platform or under any other name._

 _In fan fiction I write only for Sherlock. I do not accept prompts, suggestions or commissions for this category or any other._

 _Anonymous guest reviewers giving unwanted and unsought advice and input demonstrate poor etiquette and will thus always be ignored and deleted._

 _Anonymous reviewers should also remember, as Irene Adler told Sherlock, "disguise is always a self portrait."_


	13. Chapter 13

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 13

 _Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away._

 _(Proverbs 4. 14-15)_

"Where is he?"

Mycroft Holmes stood in the doorway, erect and imperious as ever, tone detached, almost bored. John Watson looked up at him from the edge of the hospital bed with a soul almost too tired to bother to produce words.

"Gone. You just missed him."

"Gone where?"

"No idea as to where. As for why and how - to snare Baldissi or get killed in the process. Happy with that, are we?"

Mycroft Holmes stepped inside and closed the door of the little side ward with slow deliberation. But kept his distance from the intense ball of anger crouched on the bed.

"Don't be ridiculous. Or so melodramatic."

"Oh, you mean this isn't already ridiculous or melodramatic enough for you?"

"Is that why you let him go?" The calm coolness was what pushed John Watson over the edge; not just the insolence of the question itself.

John Watson surged to his feet while the British government - already with his back to the wall in that claustrophobic little room - pressed tighter to the plasterboard.

"Have **you** ever managed to stop your brother when he is determined to do or die? "

John Watson's face was very close to the taller man's now, anger pouring off him in waves.

"Do you realise _\- do you_? - that your brother has just staggered off to catch the man who will kill him? With a knife slash from that same killer already bleeding out of him?

"Do you even remember your brother killed a man for you less than two weeks ago? Do you care about that at all? How he's been smashed over the head, had a serious drug overdose, spent a week in solitary, then was almost sent away to die? By you?

"Do you even care he's been attacked, assaulted, shot at and now stabbed since then?"

Mycroft Holmes remained motionless and impassive. Looking down at the much shorter doctor with icy pale blue eyes and an imperious tilt of the head so much like his younger brother's it should have indicated sympathy, not separation. John Watson simmered and waited for a response, but got none.

"No wonder he had a serious meltdown. Did you help? Did you hell!"

He remembered Mycroft Holmes' cold and domineering response to his brother, broken and vulnerable on the floor of 221B, and smacked a fist into the wall by Mycroft's head in reaction to that memory. Finally the other man blinked and looked away. To John Watson that was some sort of victory.

"Yet he's still doing your bidding," he continued remorselessly. "Without any help from you - active lack of help, in fact. And what if he dies today? Be happy, will you?"

There was a silence. A long silence.

"John," Words came eventually. "You are over reacting."

"I. Am. Not." The words were so firmly spoken they were a public declaration of love and loyalty. John Watson heard it from deep within himself and finally accepted that truth. And some hidden well of reserve in him released itself. "You gave me this mad project to look at Sherlock properly, find out who he really is. I didn't like that then, but I get it now. I do.

"Because the man who came back from the dead after two years in hell is still a dead man walking in so many ways, isn't he? Different. Parts missing. Even a year on things aren't getting better with him, they are getting worse. The smallest things being the biggest tells. It's like he's been hot wired. Ordinary systems bypassed. Safety valves blocked.

"He's running on empty, Mycroft. Classic PTSD symptoms. And please don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. Or I will break your long interfering nose." He dragged a breath and resisted the temptation to thump some emotion, some human response, into the other man.

"What I want to know is - why aren't you doing anything about it? Trying to mend him? Rescue him?"

"I….am. I…..did." Four stammered words.

John Watson wheeled away, overcome with a moment of bitter frustrated laughter.

"By putting me on the case? I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker."

"Do we really need to discuss this? It has to be you because you are the person….closest to him."

"No, I'm not. I was. I want to be again. But I'm not. This is all down to you."

For a moment they stared at each other. And Sherlock Holmes' brother was the one to look away.

"I'm sorry, John."

"Yeah, you've said that before, Mycroft. Didn't help then. Doesn't help now. What in hell is it between you and Sherlock? Why can't you just…..I dunno…..love him and protect him? Just for once?"

"You know what he's like."

"Yeah. And I'm starting to understand why. Not good, Mycroft."

"John…"

"He thinks….." Words stuck in his throat. He swallowed hard and started again. "He thinks you give anyone and anything priority before him. He thinks you will always sacrifice him for the greater good, even though you rarely tell him what you think that is. He thinks you set me onto him to find out what he won't tell you, or tell your parents, about what happened to him all those years ago. And that colours who he is, how he responds. Colours everything you do, every way you see him."

There was a longer silence this time.

Mycroft Holmes turned away from hot angry eyes and finally spoke.

"I had not thought …. But, yes. I do see. He may be right. I have always tried to block it out because that is his way too. I followed his lead. It was easier. And is the way our family deals with such things. Emotion, Pain. Crisis. Block them out, those messy human reactions.

"And I have always tried to compensate. For not saving him when he needed me the most. For what he went through.

"I am increasingly aware this makes me seem controlling, manipulative. Harsh."

"You're like that anyway," a little twist of twisted humour in response, a little lightness.

"Of course. That is what I am. We all know that."

Mycroft Holmes pulled himself back up to his full height. Taller than his younger brother, much taller than John Watson. Something rarely noticed as his studied calm was frequently overshadowed by his younger brother's electric presence.

"But?" John Watson prompted.

"But it is best he keeps the horror of that time to himself. "

"How do you make that out?"

"You are one of the few people who has ever seen us in the context of our parents. Where our parents now live, no-one knows their history. Sees them only as a sweet old couple time has passed by. They know nothing of who our parents are, or were. And nothing at all about us. Which is how we all prefer it.

"Anything else would be counter productive. Delve into us, and you will see only secrets and damage, John. Damage from that time." Mycroft Holmes sighed a little and crossed the room - six steps - to halt by the window and look out, eyes seeing the view but vision elsewhere.

"You've seen our father. A lovely, gentle, caring man. As he is now. After being shot in the head. Altered from what he was. Some would say lessened. He remembers nothing of what happened then, or what he was before. The strong and incisive player he was before. Or how Sherlock saved his life - all their lives, back then.

"Mummy, of course, remains wholly herself. A brilliant inhuman scientific brain who was forced to engage with humanity far too late in life. After she had already….affected… how and what her sons became.

"I was - I am - the good son, the child created in her own image, the progeny of the person she was then. But Sherlock has always been something else. Clever in ways she never understood, even when he was a child.

"Strong, instinctive, impulsive, eccentric. I was biddable, precocious and smart. I was always the smart one. But he was always something else. Something alone and singular, even as a tiny child. He refused to be shaped and moulded. Autistic tendencies, yes if course. And this singular pride in practical and visceral skills our mother despised and has never understood.

"When he was a child," Mycroft continued, in the longest speech John Watson had ever heard him make, "he wanted to be a pirate. So he learnt to sail and swim, read charts and maps. Tie knots, do first aid, ride horses. Fight with swords and single stick and with his hands. Learnt to shoot and poach, box and wrestle and God alone knows what else.

"Fighting Mummy all the way to learn what he wanted to learn. It was a deep seated need in him. Even when he finally took to the sciences to please her and satisfy his ever enquiring mind, even when he proved such a talent at it; even then it was not right for her. Never enough.

"He wanted to make secret inks, read people's souls from their blood, analyse soil and the life it created, take fingerprints and show what people had done and where they had been. She wanted him to explain black holes or split the atom. His seeking and learning has always been seen through a practical lens, hers always boxed tight into a mind of theory and calculation alone.

"So when that….awfulness…. happened, Mummy was appalled to see all those skills he had fought her to learn come into play. She saw him use those hard won skills to demonstrate their worth, and save all their lives.

"She loves him desperately, but even now cannot come to terms with the fact she owes him her life. As does Pops, and the others. That when it counted her thirteen year old son had the courage and accomplishments of a adult. The judgement and the power. And how he saved everyone he could.

"All these years on, the more he is famous and successful, being himself and utterly unique - the more she understands him less and less, and becomes more unable to admit it. To herself, to him. Almost resents what it is in him she cannot understand, and which she once tried so hard to quell.

"The special quality of him that gave them their lives. His gift to them, and the conundrum of how to cope with that is something she faces, alone, every single day. Because Pops doesn't know, or remember.

"She loves Sherlock for it, yet can barely stand to look at him. Because of the depth of what she owes him." He paused. Pulled a very un-Mycroft face. "And if you ever repeat I have said any of that, I shall deny it. Hotly."

"Hang on, Mycroft. Are you telling me….it was Sherlock who kept your father alive? Who held the thin red line? Who kept all of them together through the siege?"

"Yes, of course." In that haughty, ineffably Mycroft voice, head held high in an otherwise inexpressible pride for his brother. "Who else?"

John Watson sat back down on the bed. Dropped down hard.

"That's not what Robin said. Robin said…." he thought back to his interview in Whitehall with Sir Robert Drummond-Howe. The mahogany office, the photograph of the dead Isabel, frozen in time in her silver frame. The twitchy hands and unsettled eyes of the diplomat opposite him.

John Watson filtered through the story he had been told with this new knowledge, and against the assumptions he himself had made.

"What? What did he say? Did he invent a tale for you to make himself look better than he was?" Mycroft's voice was back to it's most astringent self, suddenly. "The testimony of everyone else involved said Sherlock. William, I mean." Mycroft qualified and justified his words in a way he would not normally. Ensuring the truth was real, objective, not his own judgement.

And John Watson heard and understood. Shook his head slowly and softly in denial and belated understanding.

"No. He told me from the outset his memory was imperfect. That he had blocked things out in fear for his wife and children, grief for his eldest daughter. The shock and horror of a desk man suddenly out in the field and utterly unequal to such an unimaginable situation."

"Robin has always demonstrated an excellent stiff upper lip. But unfortunately not a similarly stiff backbone. His failure in Sri Lanka had nothing directly to do with his daughter's death, regrettable as that was. One steps up to the mark or one funks it." The restraint of Mycroft Holmes reasserted itself. "Let us just say that after that, after having been led by a mere child, Robin's progress afterwards was always only ever sideways."

"Sorry, Having trouble getting my head round all this. Sherlock dealt with all that shit? Just Sherlock? All on his own?"

"That's what he does. You know that."

"Yeah. Too well."

He paused, and thought. With Mycroft so unusually communicative - should he ask more? Push for more information?

 _What the hell? He can only turn nasty, and that's nothing new!_

"So what happened when he was taken?"

"Ah. I don't really know. No-one does. One can conjecture only. The first focus was on Pops. The parents were rushed to hospital, Colombo at first, then long-haul to Birmingham. The best hospital in the world for treating military style injuries and gunshot wounds. While I was travelling in the other direction, to get from Washington to Colombo. For my little brother.

"The troops called in to break the siege did so. But William was missing, Mummy and Robin's wife Fiona hysterical with fear for him. They had seen him taken, but were incapable of stopping it, of course.

"A small team went up country, tracking the bandits, to rescue the boy. From what I gather the retrieval team chose itself. Colour Sergeant George Bradshaw was not just the most experienced man available, but he knew William and had spent time as Pops' bodyguard. Corporal David Gallagher had been embedded with local forces before, knew the terrain, spoke Sinhalese. And they decided that just the two of them - invisible and fast moving - was the best plan.

"They decided there would be no time limit. They would hunt until they got him back, alive or dead. I agreed this was the best course."

"But two weeks, Mycroft."

"The worst two weeks of my life. Alone in the consulate. Waiting to see if Pops would live, if William would be found. I learnt then how to be truly alone and to survive it. I learnt to be patient." He turned to John Watson with a tiny smile. "Not a total waste, you see. I now ensure nothing ever is."

"Yes. I understand. What happened next?"

"A telephone call from a little hospital - miles away - to report the team had recovered William. He was in hospital. Injured. The retrieval team did not want to move him for some days while he was treated. But he would be OK." Mycroft's head lifted, and John Watson watched his face freeze

"He indicated he did not want me to go to him. He did not want me to see him damaged. Ultimately he just wanted to go home."

Mycroft Holmes dropped his head and sighed. Carrying that pain of rejection still. For once, John Watson felt his heart go out to him.

"So I stayed where I was. And I waited. But that was better, because now I knew. The hospital was certain Pops would live; they just did not know how much of him would still be in there when he did. Bradshaw and Gallagher stayed with William until he was fit to be moved. His target was to return to England and start at his new school." He tipped John Watson a look.

"Harrow. He didn't want to be late for the new term. I was due back at Oxford. Time moved on, regardless of circumstance. It always does.

"So I packed the parents' things and organised shipment home. William returned to Colombo a week later.

"Bradshaw and Gallagher dropped him off at the house from their jeep. A sunny afternoon, .I recall. They didn't want to come in.

"He had no baggage. Just him. In new clothes. Jeans, long sleeved sweat shirt, trainers. He looked like himself….but different. Changed. Not a boy any more. Too old for his skin. Just like he is now. Remote and cut off and simmering.

"I knew he had not spoken for two days after he was rescued. Bradshaw said this was normal. He had had teeth repaired, broken nose straightened; There were toenails missing. He walked with pain perhaps only I could see. He looked as if he had hacked his hair off with nail clippers. Heavy bandaging on his wrists. Hmn." He swallowed hard against the memory, and continued.

"I ran out to meet him. I was so…..

"I said, I think, "Oh, William," and put my arms out to him. He went straight past me and just said: "My name is Sherlock. William died out there. I'm not talking about it."

" I was somewhat discomforted at this. Tried to talk to him. He kept repeating: "Where were you?" But ignored my replies. It set a pattern. Something I suspect we could not break now even if we wanted to.

"He finally asked about Pops. He didn't say much else, even on a twenty hour flight back to Heathrow. That was not a good Christmas for us; but then, we have never been fans of the season of goodwill.

"The day he came back was his birthday. He's never celebrated that since, either. Could have been worse, I suppose. Gifts are all relative, aren't they? In so many ways." He smiled then. It did not cheer his listener in any way.

"By the time we returned he was a week late starting school. We went home, He collected everything he had left ready, before he went to Colombo for his Christmas holiday. He phoned for a taxi and just left.

"Didn't want anyone to go with him. Didn't want visitors at school. I didn't see him again for months. His choice."

"Therapy? Counselling? Anything? He was thirteen, Mycroft!"

"You think I don't know that? He refused everything. Still does."

"The cat that walked by himself. The angry ghost of a genius," mused John Watson.

"What?"

"That was how the matron at Harrow described him. The lady who dressed his wrists every day until they healed. Probably knew him better than anyone through those years."

"Ah. Yes, Very apt."

"But that doesn't solve what we are dealing with now. He won't let anyone help him. He thinks he is going to his death. He's not right. Part of him is more fragile than I've ever seen it. The other part of him is harder and even more untouchable."

"Yes. John. I know. But you do understand this knowledge is just for you, don't you? Not to be shared?" Mycroft Holmes stepped back into his normal frigid persona as if it had never been away.

John Watson blinked and absorbed the mercurial change. There was more of Sherlock in his elder brother than he had ever expected. But he understood immediately what was being said.

"You mean Mary? That none of this is to be shared with Mary?"

"Nothing is to be shared with Mrs Watson. You know that. Do remember you signed the Official Secrets Act years ago. And it never lapses."

"Look, Mycroft, I….."

"Oh, good! You are together!" Christina Ravn swung into the room without letting go of the door handle. Gave them a polite smile. "Please come with me. It is Hr Magnussen….."

o0o0o

He walked. Senses on full alert, yet with nothing to feed them. Few people, little traffic. No sense of anyone following, watching, noticing. And he needed that! To know his plan was working.

He felt weak and over sensitised. And the slash on his ribs hurt, pulled an awareness with every step. Should have kept the gauze and the steri strips, he reflected. But then, he also needed to distract and draw in the enemy by being visibly damaged, weak, feeble, appearing easy to pick off.

He walked very slowly. That loose weaving walk of the drunk or the druggie. But also because that was how he felt. A zombie. Walking dead. Stuck in his own continuity.

The trill of his telephone made him physically jolt in reaction. A text. He opened the screen.

 **CCTV stills attached. See what you see? Chris.**

He frowned. Not so long since Chris had dropped his bombshell about booking and billing at the Savoy that had sent his brain into turmoil. Chris Walsh was still being busy on his behalf. Being thorough.

Five photo attachments. He skimmed through them all. Stopped breathing. Frowned. Went back. Slimmed again. Looked more closely. And felt a heavy weight roll in across his shoulders, a heavy black blanket of smog fill all the spaces of his brain.

Each photo grab demanded a separate answer. He looked, considered. Gave them.

Three separate stills showing a tall, ascetic man with a neat beard and clear rimmed glasses walking the corridors of the Savoy Hotel.

 **I note the date. Christmas Eve. SH**

 **I note the date. January 1. SH**

 **Will organise face recognition imagery comparison on these. Thank you. SH**

The back view of what looked like the same lean man with a young boy in jeans and baseball jacket about to enter the hotel suite he recognised. The man's hand protectively between the boy's shoulder blades.

 **He does not have a boy child. Any child. SH**

Another rear view, but of a different man. Shorter, darker, younger.

 **I recognise this other person. SH**

He looked at the stills again and waited for his pulse to calm and his brain to process. Sent another text.

 **Get out of the security office. MI5 or the Yard will be along to seize all relevant footage asap. IOU. SH**

Five grainy monochrome shots that looked so ordinary, yet had caused Sherlock Holmes' brain to short circuit.

He sat down on the nearest low wall. Waited for everything to settle and calm and return to logic and detachment. But then found he had to start walking again. Mentally agitated. Walking to find calm.

He reeled away from himself. Had to think. Had to do this alone. Had to keep everyone else safe.

Catalani. Yes, Catalani was the person to tackle this.

Get Lestrade or Lady Smallwood to seize and process all the hotel's security footage. But Catalani was the expert for this. Catalani the hunter, the bloodhound with the proper scent in his nose. Catalani - who had his own fatter fish to fry than Enrico Baldissi, as he had admitted, Catalani - who had been the one to insist on providing dispassionate aid and invisible support. The way to find the enemy if no-one else could.

Ah, yes. And technology improved so quickly these days! Yet he did not even have the man's telephone number.

This new urgency to contact Catalani caused a mental connection. So he leant against an advertising hoarding as he called a number. A voice answered after just two rings. A voice that sounded as if it was right next to him. Oddly, he rather wished it was,

"Maggie Driscoll."

"It's me."

"What do you need?"

"Information. Obviously. Simeon Kosi Nzema. What can you tell me about him?"

"He's still in custody. Deportation is being processed. Why?"

"Get them to hold back on that. I think you can get him properly. Not just deport him. I think he is a kingpin of sex trade trafficking. I think that was what he and Carlsson and Baldissi were doing at Appledore. Following Magnussen's secret trade."

"Go on."

"Think. Connect base characteristics of him and Baldissi. Magnussen's original business links with porn magazines. My voice of experience. Unless you think leopards change their spots just because they get money and power?

"Tell Elizabeth to push the Ghanian authorities for more information, the slightest whisper, gossip, titbit. The latest sex traffic alerts. Get a whole raft of security CCTV from the Savoy running from December 23 to yesterday. Elizabeth told me to do the legwork and get her the leads. Here they are. She will know what to look for, and so will you."

"Onto it. Why aren't you talking to her direct?"

"Because she will try to stop what I am doing. I can't let her, and I don't have time to argue. Also…." he hesitated. "Also I needed to speak to you."

He had a sudden memory of her, kneeling beside him as he swam in the dark solitude of the basement pool at the Adventurer's Club. That black suit, the sexy boots with the yellow heels. The immaculate hair and make up. And the unwanted compassion and softness in her eyes then. Shook the memory away, and thought only of her knowledge of sex and it's power, it's obsession and manipulation.

Not a dominatrix. Not a danger. A strong willed force for good out there in the real world. Not a world of sex as power, possession, depravity. Not as fantasy, or fun, or fiction. But of sex as reality and realisation, as conscience and conduit, as trade for teasing out truth.

"Of course. Go on."

"I need to know why you put Alfredo Catalani into my path just when I needed him."

"Yes. He told me about following you that night and interceding. How angry you were with him."

She had deflected him from an answer to his question. Relieved yet also disturbed he appeared not to notice. That was not like him. An indicator of stress and reaction. She knew how disdainful he would be if she said she had done it for his protection, for mutual assistance. She frowned and leaned into the telephone as if it would connect her closer to him, allow her to both read his mind and soothe it.

"He should have put down Baldissi then. But he said he wanted Baldissi alive and free to lead him to bigger fish. I understand that. Even if that put the onus of getting Baldissi onto me."

There was a pause.

"Don't let yourself be hurt," she snapped at him.

"Touching of you to think of me. I am hurt already, just not finished yet."

"What do you need?" she repeated. Knowing he did not want sympathy nor would accept comfort.

So he told her. And so she gave him the telephone number.

"I am forwarding you some security stills. Have a look. If I don't come out of this alive they may be the only legacy I leave you to resolve this thing."

"Sherlock! Explain! Sher…..!"

But he had gone. Leaving just a whine in empty air. She clicked her phone, cursing, to view the security stills as they reached her. Stretched out a land for the internal telephone that would connect her to Lady Elizabeth Smallwood.

o0o0o

"So Maggie Driscoll gave you my number."

"Indeed. So I can forward you some security stills. So you can answer some questions. If you would."

Alfredo Catalani could hear a judder in the voice; yet a voice so very formal. So he was talking and walking at the same time. Somewhere in the city; no time to go elsewhere, the sound of traffic passing, of other people distantly in the background.

"How polite of you," he demurred.

"Hmmn. I can be sometimes. When I need something."

"So ask."

"Tell me why you were in London the night you let Baldissi go."

" I had been in London for some days. Had had notification of the arrest of Kosi Nzema. A person of interest to me. Needed to talk to him. See if that led anywhere. My department had had their eye on him for some time. Watching his involvement in sex crime become deeper and more serious."

"Any luck with that?"

"Not really. The man is too used to being interviewed by the authorities. But the fact he was there, at Magnussen's. That was enough of a starting point for me.

"You may know that sex and Romeo crime is prevalent in Ghana. He had minor convictions, links. For him to appear in England, alongside other people of interest, at what I would consider a far higher level than expected, had all my alarm bells ringing."

"Intel was sparse, but consistent over years. Seemed to link him to an infamous, almost legendary, child sex ring I have been trying to find and break for a long time. So when I heard of the death of Magnussen, the connected death of his lieutenant Carlsson - of the arrest of Kosi Nzema and the escape of Baldissi - all my instincts came to high alert."

"Why? Specifically why?"

"Because of the little I knew of this sex ring I knew there were three lynchpins. Code name of these were Andrea, Guiseppe, Bartolomeo. Italian then. Mafia? Cosa Nostra? A logical assumption. Yes? The Mafia is know to dabble in such crimes. Reliable, steady earnings from sex. Child sex interest is certainly on the increase. Boys especially.

"Could not see a link between the names otherwise. Were they real names? Was there a family or group connection? Enough names to cover Baldissi, Carlsson, Kosi Nzema. And Baldissi boasting of Italian heritage. Slight, but the only lead I had. So I had to follow the money."

"Family. The names have a family connection. Obvious. Plain as the nose on your face." There was an edge to the voice now that Catalani could not define. He wished he could see that patrician face, read the strangely deep pale eyes.

"So tell me."

"Not yet. Not until I am sure. Go on."

Yes, Catalani could definitely hear something unusual in the voice; something wild, verging on hysterical, some indefinable emotion being fiercely repressed.

"This sex ring is known as the Charlemagne Level. Charlemagne. Famous king who drew much of Europe together. An anti-Brexiter before his time, I guess." he laughed a little at his own joke. Sherlock Holmes did not join in. "Not generically connected to the code names as names. Not as far as I can see. Not that that matters Delusions of grandeur, you think?"

"No. Not exactly."

"Sherlock! Stop this! Tell me what you are thinking! Now!"

Catalani was becoming frustrated by not understanding his own narrative. A frustration starting to show

The voice changed. Took on a slow and dreamy quality. Thought in process. And a change of subject.

"Are the Magnussen family safe? Safe and well?"

"Yes."

"All four of them?"

"Yes. But what has that got to do with anything?"

"Everything, Freddie. Everything."

"Sherlock, stop hugging this to your chest. Tell me what you know!"

"If I do you will be compromised. Put into danger. May try to stop me. This is my shout. "

There was a long pause Alfredo Catalani was too experienced to try to fill or to hurry. He could hear much within that silence. Laboured breathing on the verge of hyperventilation. Deep breaths in, shallow and shaking breaths out. Something else that was almost sobs. Some huge internal shock and turmoil being absorbed.

Ignoring what was going on around him within the hospital, Catalani pushed all his concentration into the telephone in his hand.

"Please tell me what you think you may know about the Charlemagne Level."

The strange phrasing, the soft and formal politeness of the voice as opposed to the tormented sounds he had been hearing made the Italian investigator clench his hand reactively around his phone and frown. From intense reaction then immediately to such a calm voice - it could have been two different people he was hearing.

He began to understand what all the people who knew the man had told him about Sherlock Holmes. What he had doubted until he now. The power of the intellect over the personal. The depth of the intelligence in operation.

"Facts are few, but we know it started up about twenty years ago…."

"Twenty five."

"OK. Twenty five Hang on - am I telling you anything you don't know?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"OK. Started in mainland Europe, as far as we can see. Low profile, slow to appear on the radar. Soon it established a base in Asia, then Pakistan. Hong Kong, then in Ghana. The usual easy targets; orphans, under age girls, the mentally deficient, juvenile criminals, runaways. Gathered kids from around the world to serve markets around the world.

"Gained and processed a lot if bodies. Lost a few; we liberated a few. Par for the course, usual ups an downs. The organisation proved clever and very secretive. Functionaries were set up then sacrificed to a point where we realised we had no idea of the governing brains of the operation. We still don't.

"What is interesting is that gradually the Charlemagne Level started to change it's game. Fewer bodies, different priorities. As if they were going upmarket. And even procuring kids for sex to order."

"Less logistical work, larger profits. Specialist reputation. A secret market within a market that fed and protected itself at a different level," Sherlock Holmes offered.

"Indeed. You seem to understand."

"Understand a bit. I suppose so. Yes."

"I didn't realise this was your speciality."

"It isn't."

Catalani frowned, missed a beat.

Oh. OK. I just thought…." he started again. "Magnussen was high profile as a media giant. But he had ….kinks that showed a little from time to time. Because of this I was sure Magnussen was the brains behind the outfit. Instinct mainly.

Then as a result of his sudden and unexpected death, the loss of Carlsson and the situation of the other two, I expected the ring would have gone down"

"But it hasn't."

"No, Just seems to be rolling right on. AS if someone else has taken over seamlessly."

"Freddie! Think! Of course it was Magnussen. If it reassures you. I suspect the sex crimes were his real trade, his first love. He had started his career in male modelling as a young man and slipped almost accidentally into porn. Found he liked it, the sensations and the power. Extorted his way into owning a ratty little porn magazine. From there he built a far more socially acceptable bombproof and respected media career.

"This gave him more money and power. More control over others. But his heart remained in sex. Manipulating other people with it. Buying them with it. Using all the grubby little secrets on the way. Porn and sex and public exposure and blackmail and the ruination of people's lives. The two paths were so interdependent he could not help himself but to walk both. And thought he was so clever.

"So yes. The sex ring was his logical next step. And something he enjoyed.

"His parents had died by then, which was a wonderful excuse to alienate himself from his brothers, the people who might have queried his work and his motives. So he took a free hand, then. Ran with the ball in play. No pun intended."

How do you make the connection?"

"Think. In this modern world people always have to find internet passwords, pseudonyms, handles. They give themselves away. Use birthdates and anniversaries and nicknames. Their own names spelt backwards, or with the vowels taken out.

"Some people, the ones who think they are most intelligent, play word games. As if they are crossword puzzle setters. So look at the name. Charlemagne. It means Carolus Magnus - Charles The Great.

"Is that not Magnussen? The great Charles Augustus Magnussen? He would be amused by that and find it highly appropriate. It would also suit his ego."

"Yeah. You're right, aren't you?"

"Of course I am."

"But what about the other three code names? Where do they lead us? They seem to be a constant, do not change when the man carrying the name does. So the names are titles more than names as such. Explain that one to me? The links, their connection to each other. It must be a pointer."

"No. Not yet. I am certain within myself…..but I need to prove it out."

"That is not playing the game."

"I don't play games."

The deathly finality in the tone caused Catalani to blink hard, and change the subject.

"Where are you? What are you doing?"

"Where? No idea. Some anonymous street in Aalborg, walking up towards the Limnfjord. What am I doing? Offering myself as the bait Enrico Baldissi will not be able to resist biting without him realising this is my plan, not his pounce."

"That is dangerous. Do you have backup?"

"Of course not. Backup would be spotted and frighten him away. He's a moron, not a fool. That ploy doomed to failure would not only waste time, but give Baldissi time and impulse to snag more innocent victims like Johan."

"His announced plan of campaign has always been simple. Hurting people close to me to make me suffer. Before finally killing me. I am just creating a short cut. Makes sense."

"Yes. But risky and foolhardy."

"That sounds like me."

"Sherlock….you do know what was in the orange juice?"

"Of course, or I would not have drunk it. The bits were not orange pulp but the latest micro GPS tracking devices. Each one with different efficacy timings, triggered by food consumption. Sending a tracking signal for - what - a minute? But with only a limited life until they pass through the digestive system and are expelled. Two days retention efficiency maximum."

"Two minute signal life, not one. But otherwise very good," Catalani complimented. But why was he not surprised by Sherlock Holmes wisdom and assessment? "Baldissi will never know you can be tracked now. But you will need to eat or drink in that time to activate the trackers, that is how they work. Can you do that?"

"I can try. As you know, the problem has always been locating where he has been hiding; both in London and now here. We have no track record for him, either under his real name or as Baldissi. He has been invisible because he has had support. Secret support. If this works, he won't have.

"And by then it may all be theoretical anyway. But you will be able to get him then, whether I am dead or alive."

"Don't say that. But if you are going to say that - then tell me who I should be targeting?"

"I can't. I may be wrong." There was another lengthy pause. "I am somewhat off kilter just now." The admission was spoken without emotion, and gave no clue why.

You have been stabbed."

"Not that." Another pause. "If I don't get out of this you will still get Baldissi. As for the person substituting for Charlemagne…."

"The Ghanian….."

"As for the person substituting for Charlemagne," Sherlock Holmes continued as if he had not heard the interruption. "….go to the Musikkens Hus at the Utzon Centre and find the violinist Alyssa Almedova giving master classes there for the next week. Speak to her and her manager, Marco de Bono.

"Tell them those three names and ask them to make the connection. To explain it to you. Then you will know for yourself. That is the best I can do for you."

"I could do that now."

"Yes, you could. But it would still only be theory. By tomorrow you will know for sure. And then you will have the whole network in your hand."

"Oh, good lord. Sherlock….."

"Look at the screen grabs I am sending you. Talk to Maggie and her friend Elizabeth. Put two and two together. If I am right these pictures and connections will bring all this out of the shadows.

"Keep your tracker tuned in for me. My life may depend on it. Because if this works….I have no idea where he will take me and what he will do to me. How quickly. So I shall be playing this Micawber wise or I will already be dead."

"That is scary. Mad."

"Yes. But find me another plan that will work as quickly, and I will do it."

"Now I understand your decision."

"Good. Please stick with me, Freddie, or we are all shafted." A deep sigh.

"I am going to wipe my phone of all messages and contacts now. They would be dangerous in the wrong hands. Baldissi's hands."

The line went dead without any words of goodbye. And Catalani heard the sound of five photo grabs entering his inbox.

o0o0o

He moved on, walked northwards. Played the conversation of earlier that day back in his own head. To make sure there was no mistake in his hearing or his conclusions.

"She makes wonderful music with that Guarneri. How did she get it?" he asked. Sitting in the small back room of the Music House, hugging his coffee.

The flattery of the question, and the fact it was so obvious, made Sherlock Holmes flinch in disgust at the mundane obviousness of his own words. But Marco de Bono appeared not to notice.

Perhaps Marco trusted him now. Perhaps he got asked such questions all the time. Perhaps, as a man in love, he was just delighted to talk about Alyssa. Whatever the reason, Marco de Bono smiled, and swept into his story.

" Oh, this is now legend! Alyssa had been a star performer since the age of six. She used a variety of child sized violins - all Cremonas, obviously - as she grew.

But when she won the Paris Conservatoire prize it was essential she obtained not just a good violin but a great one. Which is not easy. The best ones are usually spoken for, and by great artistes. Or are lost in collections, hidden away in vaults as investments and never played. .Or owned by companies as public relations exercises, all demanding the touch of star players with star power.

"Alyssa was too young, too untried, too lacking in wider fame, to have that - to get the best, or have them offered to her. You understand?"

Sherlock Holmes nodded. The lark kept starting to ascend in the music hall next door. The purity of the sound was perpetually distracting.

"Even when she was just a teenager she showed a gift for teaching. Hr Magnussen turned up at a young musician's weekend she was tutoring at Snape Maltings. Introduced himself.

"We did not know him, not then. But he was very interested in Alyssa, recognised her talent. We learnt his special interest was violin music, and the encouragement of young talent. Where the future of classical music lay, he said.

Over the weekend he spoke to us often, listened to Alyssa play. And finally he explained he -his company - owned a Guarneri. The Holderness Guarneri. Several people had played her for short periods, but Hr Magnussen had never felt the right musician had arrived, he said.

"He offered Alyssa a trial with the Guarneri. Of course she jumped at the chance."

"What happened then?"

"She came here, to Aalborg. She was so excited to just see the instrument, hold it in her hands., Less than 200 Guarneris in the whole world. The favourite of Paganini, Heifitz, Menuhin…..a darker more sonorous tone than the more famous Stradivari." Here Marco de Bono broke off with an apologetic laugh. "But you know that! You are a violinist! And you have your own Guarneri!"

"I must confess I have a collection of violins. Including an Irish jig fiddle and a Hardanger."

"Indeed? Oh, the tone of a Hardanger, properly played….."

"Hr Magnussen?" Sherlock Holmes prompted Marco to return to the subject.

"He was delighted at what he heard, Alyssa delighted at what she played. A contract was drawn up and signed, to begin with a three year term of loan."

"In exchange for what?"

"The usual. Recording contract payment, publicity work, various attendance specifications."

"Which were?"

"Here twice a year, naturally. Aalborg is home A special interest in taking music to young people. A range of world venues to reflect Hr Magnussen's business connections: so he could combine business with pleasure."

"Where would that be?"

"I can give you the programme for the next eighteen months. London, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Albania, Brazil, Qatar, Ghana, China….."

"An adventurous range of destinations."

"Ah, but that is the challenge! And part of the pleasure, you see! Opening up new markets, new ventures. We go to play and to teach. Hr Magnussen often arrives alongside us. Does his business and enjoys the music he sponsors."

"Shrewd. Sensible."

"You sound unconvinced…"

"Oh, not at all. I often sound like that."

"He is good to us, Mr Holmes. An understanding and accommodating benefactor. Because he loves and understands the music so much."

"Was it his idea to organise that lonely meeting on the bridge in London, alone and late at night?"

"It must have been, mustn't it? He does not work through a company board, or a committee. It is all him. And the telephone message I received said 'sponsor' and that she was to wait alone, as he was busy and may be delayed."

Marco de Bono leant forward, and looked deep into the eyes of the consulting detective. Even though at that point, he was unaware Sherlock Holmes was being a detective. Just a friend, a musician, a trusted colleague.

 _Such a difference in attitude now. Just a plain and honest man's way with secrets. Helpful to me. A fool to himself. In the circumstances._

 _But in this case honesty was indeed the best policy to achieve the end result. So who was he to complain?_

"We did not know she was going to be attacked. How could we? It is a mystery. But it has not been repeated, We have received no threats or follow up. Perhaps it was all a mistake?"

"Indeed. On someone's part."

"Alyssa was so lucky you arrived on the scene and saved her. The thought of it still makes my blood run cold."

"Yes." Sherlock Holmes looked into dark and candid and caring eyes. Wanted to scoff at such honesty of soul. Wanted to scream a warning. Wanted to shake the man for his naivete, his soul lost in music, his heart lost to a uniquely talented girl.

 _Is this what ordinary people do? Is this how they feel? How they respond? How they work? Wear their hearts on their sleeves and express their thoughts unguarded?_

 _How stupid and dangerous and idiotic. How pathetically human._

"I must go. Work to do. An appointment to keep." He stood up. Marco de Bono stood too, and showed signs of opening his arms and his smile for a manly hug. A hug Sherlock Holmes had no intention of participating in. So he held out his right hand instead. And Marco de Bono settled for social acceptance and shook the hand offered.

"Apologise for me, Marco. Apologise to Alyssa and explain why I cannot stay and talk to her." He watched the understanding, confirming nod. The polite kindness of it.

"Of course. She will understand. Please do not worry."

The next words formed themselves and forced their way past his defences.

"Look after her, Marco. Keep her safe. She is a rare talent, and has a rare guardian in you."

"Thank you, Sherlock. I am very pleased you think so. And I will never fail her."

"See you don't," he said gruffly.

And instead of slipping past the master class and through the small hall, he exited through the wings and the wide open doors of the scenery dock.

He had an appointment with Johan Magnussen. And far too much to think about

o0o0o

The spare key turned silently in the deadlock on the front door, but he paused before entering the apartment. Deathly tired. Deeply depressed.

He had been so certain he would be targeted and taken. Nothing had happened. Even though he had sat on walls, lingered on benches, wandered and staggered and been weak and helpless and absent.

And what would he do now his only plan - his master plan - had failed? Do next? How would he flush Enrico Baldissi out of hiding and into the light? However would he be caught now?

Drew a deep breath through his nose. He could smell garlic, tomatoes, beef…..spaghetti Bolognese, was it? There was the slightly acrid aroma of red wine. Chet Baker on the stereo crooning his plea to _Let's Get Lost…_

He frowned. He had expected Christina to be out and working, still working the Magnussen case. Not intent on relaxation. But she had asked earlier if he would be home that evening….Conversation? Was that what she had planned? Seduction? Unlikely.

But his instincts were screaming at him, despite the welcoming ambience. He set his shoulders and stepped forward. Two steps. Three. Closed the door behind him despite his reservations.

Along the hallway and into the sitting room. Stopped, just beyond the doorway.

Music, the table set for two, low lighting.

 _Be calm. Appear duped. Seem relaxed and casual. Relaxed and casual even while picking the threads holding the lining of the right pocket of the Belstaff for the skeleton knuckle duster encased there. Ease it with smooth habit along past the fingers. Be ready._

 _Left hand. Phone. Cannot risk dialling because someone would speak in reply.. Press mute, press record and hope…_

 _He who would valiant be, 'gainst all disaster…_

 _Speak. Be very normal._

"Christina?" he called in his studied and ever so ordinary voice. "I didn't realise you were going to cook. That smells good…."

' _Man is the only kind of varmint who sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it'….oh, how true. How bloody true._

There was a breath of laughter and the sound of material brushing material as someone moved from the sofa to stand. A figure rose into view. Sharp blue suit, bright white satinised cotton shirt, pencil slim leather tie in matching blue.

Enrico Baldissi was turning then, smiling to greet him. Raising a glass of wine - _claret if the man had the etiquette to use the correct glass; small but telling detail -_ eyes full of heat and of humour.

" _Ciao, Tesoro di maschio,"_ he hummed. "I have been waiting for you. Very impatiently.

"I am not your darling, Harry," Sherlock Holmes spoke with a cool hauteur calculated to challenge.

"You think not?"

The younger man turned slightly and moved forward.

Sherlock Holmes moved forward too. He needed to be in reach to use the knuckleduster. To get within arm's reach. And there was only one way to do that.

He pitched his voice to it's lowest purr.

" _Vuoi scoparmi, ragazzo?"_ he asked in a wisp above a whisper. You want to fuck me, boy?

He heard Harry Baldwin suck in a sharp surprised breath as he took two slow steps forward.

" _Buono_ ," he continued slowly. " _Qui sono io."_ Well…here I am.

He forced a wicked twinkle unto his eyes, a lazy smile onto his lips.

Lifted his left hand to curve it around Enrico Baldissi's jaw. Felt the slight pull of dark stubble, the heat of his body. Their eyes met. The grey eyes were the ones in control - _rabbit in headlights? What? Different being the boss instead of the follower, isn't it, Harry? -_ watching the brown eyes flaring with surprise.

He drew his right arm back, hand still in the pocket, preparing to draw it out and forward, preparing to strike.

But he never got that far. Something ( _soft, grey, cotton and fleece. Hoodie. Christina's from the familiar scent of expensive laundry liquid and tea tree deodorant)_ flicked over his head from behind with panic level strength and vicious amateur intent.

Someone had stepped silently from the bathroom behind him. Someone - _ah, the same person who had been the driver of the florist's van, the accomplice! He had a name now - Joel Barbossa - and_ with more desperation and brute force than style, flicked the hoodie over his head, wrenched backwards and down. And Sherlock Holmes, with one man's full bodyweight and his own surprise taking him down, was helpless to do anything but follow the laws of gravity.

His right hand flew out to the side, beyond his control, and he felt the knuckleduster leave his grasp, heard it clatter to the floor.

"Sherlock! You naughty boy! You were going to cheat!"

Enrico Baldissi's voice has risen to a high pitched giggle. Sherlock Holmes did his best to stop the back of his head cracking on the pine laminate. Felt the young man behind him stamp one foot down either side of his head, now imprisoned by the hoodie and was in the dark in more ways than one, unable to see and barely able to breath.

He thrashed. Body bounced on the living room floor. He felt the shock as Baldissi dropped to his knees beside him.

"There. That's better. I have you down to my level."

Wet. Wetness on his face. Wet through the cotton fleece of the hoodie. Nose and tongue told him it was the contents of the wineglass. Claret, as predicted.

"Now, you see, you did the wrong thing there, Sherlock I have planned food and wine, a dash of ket, a lovely, lovely evening - the full seduction job.

"But now we do it the much better way. The harder way, _tesoro."_

Sherlock heard him chuckle. Felt him lean in.

"Harder for you, that is. Much more fun for me."

He already had his bottom lip trapped between his teeth to absorb the shock and stop himself crying out in pain when a hand plunged between his legs and inside his waistband to wrench his genitals up and to one side.

"Lots of fun for me tonight, sweetheart. And then I kill you. It's going to be a lovely evening." There was the absurdly gentle touch of fingers on his torso. And he braced with horror of exposure and something like fear. "And I have a head start, I see. What a mess I made of your ribs. Oh, deary me. And that pretty shirt. Well, it was a pretty shirt."

There was a beat, a silence. Then a voice so close to his ear the breath felt warm against the lobe.

"I haven't forgotten how beautiful you were when filled with ketamine and GHB. And Charles and Simeon and Erik and me. But you'll have to make do with just me tonight.

"Whatever you might have anticipated, I won't disappoint you. I've wanted to repeat the experience for months. And ever since you killed Charles, were the cause of Erik dying…well….the anticipation has been exquisite.

"And for you too, I am sure. Well, I aim to please."

Impossible to struggle free. Impossible to complete a shoulder spring and get off the ground. Impossible to even turn. Pinned. Spatchcocked like a chicken, Oh, the irony.

 _What can't be cured must be endured…_

 _The darkness will pass into a new dawn…._

 _You knew this was coming. And you always said - you told everyone - you would rather go through this again and win rather than just give in and die…..even if fated to die._

 _Go down fighting. Do not fear oblivion…_

The needle that went clumsily into his neck was almost welcome. He fought and thrashed against it - because that was the human instinct for survival imposing itself - but he knew he finally went under with a whimper of what might almost have been relief when that familiar cold numbness took him down.

And then darkness came - _Hello darkness. My. Old. Friend_ \- movement stilled. Brain and body ceased to be. It was over.

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's notes:**

Micawber wise: Charles Dickens character Mr Wilkins Micawber, a comic creation from David Copperfield.. Whose optimistic theory of life was always that something would turn up.

Snape Maltings: The fabled modern concert hall and recording centre created by English composer Benjamin Britten near Southwold, Suffolk, England. Famous for it's acoustics, inspiration, music festivals and encouragement of young talent.

'Man is the only kind of varmint who sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it:' John Steinbeck.

'Hello darkness, my old friend.' Paul Simon, The Sound of Silence.


	14. Chapter 14

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 14

 _The journey is a hard journey, but if we hold together in the morning and in the evening, what matter if in the hours between there is sorrow?_

 _(Title page inscription, Duchess of Sutherland's Keepsake Book)_

She could not stand still. Walking up and down the sitting room in her own apartment, hands in her hair and tugging it. Face crumpled. John Watson, Alfredo Catalani and Piet Bruhl watched her anger and distress and had not the slightest idea what to say to her, or what could possibly make things better.

Except having Sherlock Holmes standing in front of them all, being scathing about their worry and concern. About him. About his whereabouts and what might be happening to him.

Mycroft Holmes stepped back two paces from the group and simply observed them all. Removed, remote. Head high and eyes like ice.

"This is what my home looked like when I walked through the door! This! Look at it!"

Christine Ravn turned with hopeless anger at the four men in front of her. The four men she had summoned to her home. Made a broad gesture with her right arm to encompass the room before them. Her sitting room.

The dining table had been set for two when she left for work that morning. Left for work with Sherlock Holmes standing by the window checking something on his phone, absorbed and grave.

He had looked up when she left and closed the door softly behind her, but had made no reply to her question and farewell: "See you later?" other than with a none committal hum.

So why wasn't he here now? Why did it look as if he had returned to her flat, but had been attacked and taken?

For now all was chaos in the room. The glasses and crockery swept off the table and lying broken on the floor. Place mats and cutlery flung aside. Cushions and pads from all the seats clustered together before the fireplace as if creating a nest; or a bed. The rugs rucked up on the cool pine laminate. Something sprayed and marring the bright polish of the floor nearby. She did not want to admit which human fluid she knew it to be.

Wine spilt and drying on the rug beneath the table. Another crusted redness close by that everyone in that room knew was blood. Which everyone peered at and then looked away, none identifying or mentioning.

A top of the range smart phone - Sherlock Holmes' phone - lay squashed and in pieces, stamped on and smashed in the doorway. A used and disgarded hypodermic syringe six inches closer to them than that.

There was the bitter aroma in the air of burnt food from the saucepan on the hob, a slight film of smoke from the kitchen. The electronic hum of a music centre at the end of a disc, retro turntable spinning vinyl, speakers humming and still waiting to be switched off. Piet Bruhl casually reached a hand across and did so. The resulting silence was far too loud..

"This," she said firmly, "Is not just burglary, now is it? This is not just criminals violating my home and my privacy! This is punishment and sheer spite. Destruction for it's own sake." She turned on them, annoyed by their silence before her untypical tirade. "Listen to you all, jumping in to help and reassure me! Say something!"

Still silence. Still being just watched by professionally, studiously blank, faces.

"Tell me you know where he is, what he is doing! Or what is being done to him! And say that he is safe!" Her voice was loud and bitter into the silence, and totally unlike her normal self. She could hear this shrill accusing voice that was not hers, but seemed unable to stop it.

It took Mycroft Holmes to stem the flow. He raised his umbrella and rapped it sharply on the floor.

"Detektive Inspektor! Please control yourself. This outburst does not help!"

"It makes me feel better," she replied stubbornly. Faced him without apology and stood tall, hands on her hips, and sucked in several deep breaths.

"I had been talking to him. Five minutes later I tried again - his phone was switched off. Which is not like him. Not at all. I have not been able to contact him since. I know why now," she said, looking at the mobile phone she recognised from that morning, just a ruined metal case now, in bits on the floor. "He was heading here, heading home. Coming back. This place was always his objective. He must have been almost on the doorstep….."

"Clearly he made it back ," Piet Bruhl observed mildly. He knew her well. She was his friend. Yet he did not feel he could step closer, offer comfort, even though he shared her fear just as acutely.

She made a futile gesture with her hands. "I had the meal all ready to cook for when he got here…." She stopped herself ranting this time.

Thought of the vulnerable frightened boy who had been next to her in the dark in the early hours of that very morning. Tense and rigid and hyper vigilant. Consumed with fear and a sort of shame she could not understand. But rigid determination to do the right thing and solve the problem, stop the promised killings.

She thrust that memory away. That weakness would achieve nothing. And he would not want her to remember it anyway.

"Someone broke in; knew he had been here and would be back. Set up the trap so he would step into it - to make it look as if I had got here before him. Meal cooking, wine poured, soft music, soft lights. Given the impression I was out to soothe or seduce. The bloody affront of it….."

Four men watched her tamp down her anger, fiercely now. All responding with typical male silence in the face of female anguish.

"They have taken him. Taken him, but set it up to look as if….as if….."

"He had given into the temptation of drugs again, or got pissed, and stumbled off into the night," John Watson. "Or even brought someone home for sex. Anything to mess with all our minds. Delay us. Show cleverness and power. Smear Sherlock."

"You have omitted to point out that he is hurt. There is blood on the floor," Piet Bruhl prompted quietly.

"He was bleeding anyway. Where Baldissi slashed him earlier today," John Watson explained. His head felt hollow and his soul was empty. He forced the words past his teeth. "And when he left the hospital he deliberately opened that cut again to make it bleed. To make himself look weaker - ill, distracted - worse than he really was."

She did not bother to stifle an angry sigh.

"All you clever men!" she exclaimed. "Do any of you have the first idea where he may be? What is being done to him? Even as we are standing here talking about him?"

Her heart lurched. The memory of Sherlock Holmes in her guest bed returned, unbidden.

His exhaustion, his plain description of himself it had pained her to hear: _trollop, slag, rut with anyone…red hot good at it…distract…concentrate on me…. come on to me…._ his plan to distract a despicable man from his other victims; by becoming the bait, the lure, a mere object for use. Just a body.

She was her professionalism, her objectivity. Always. But her head screamed, and her heart could only think of the warmth of him, the almost boyish old fashioned courtesy and humour when they were alone, his over awareness and fear, his dislike of being touched, which only he could see as weakness and not a touching, almost charming, vulnerability.

Piet Bruhl said:

"Someone has trampled his phone to stop the GPS tracker inside being used to find him. Stomped on the phone out of sheer spite." He shook his head. "The last time he was in Denmark I cut a GPS tracker from under his skin. If only I had left it…."

"If you had left it," Christina Ravn pointed out, "He would have been dead then. Not just missing now."

"Stop all this," Mycroft Holmes rasped. "Regret is pointless. It wastes mental energy."

"He was intent on doing all this himself. No help. no support. He saw a bigger picture," John Watson said.

Alfredo Catalani was computing possibilities and clearly not enjoying his conclusions.

"I have fitted him with trackers," he said. "New micro tracking devices. They are in his digestive system."

They all looked at him, resisting over reacting, registering what looked merely a restrained professional surprise.

"The bits in the orange juice he complained about? They were in the drink you gave him in hospital?" John Watson's voice was hollow.

"Of course." Catalani shrugged. "They are new but not infallible. He needs food or drink to activate the trackers so I can locate him. I have the tablet in my pocket on alert. They will also expel at the normal digestive rate. Unless he has something to eat or drink, I cannot find him. "

"But he didn't know any of that when he left here. And when he left here….." Christina Ravn swept a handful of items that had been in her bag, up into her hand. "He left behind, in my bed and hidden under my pillow, his wallet and passport. I just found them now, when I checked through the flat.

"He left them because he did not think he was coming back. What did he think was going to happen to him?"

Only Mycroft Holmes met her look levelly when she said this. And answered.

"We all know the answer to that. Please do not distress yourself unduly at the thought, Inspektor. My brother knows what he is doing. He has done this before. And calculated this as the only course of action open to him. He knew the risks. And the odds." He nodded once; objective approval, professional calculation..

"Which is exactly why I am so worried, Mr Holmes."

o0o0o

It seemed an appalling end to the day. Earlier, she had crammed herself into the corner of a ward clerk's tiny office, hidden by a filing cabinet, phone to her ear.

"I got the passenger manifest from Harry Baldwin's flight to Aalborg, got Scotland Yard to check it for any possible fellow travellers who might be his accomplice. He may think of himself as Enrico Baldissi, and that's who he is to everyone else, but his passport still says Harry Baldwin."

"Yes, let's keep everything formal and correct," Sherlock Holmes agreed distantly.

"There were five possibilities. The Yard reckon the accomplice has to be a young man called Joel Barbarossa. Ever heard of him?"

"No. Another Italian name, though. Yet another cousin?"

"Seems so."

"Any criminal history?"

"None found so far."

"So our Harry is busy corrupting yet another youngster. I really must stop him doing that. Any background?"

"Joel is twenty. Spoilt and sheltered only son, daresay the sort that thinks the world is one big Marvel comic and he's the next superhero. Fancies living dangerously with his sexy naughty cousin. According to a Sergeant Donovan, anyway."

"Yes, that is exactly what she would say. A criminal virgin, then. That should be fun. And should give me a little advantage I might not otherwise have. Thank you for telling me."

"Are you OK? You sound a bit….strange."

"I am always strange. That's what you get when you work with a freak."

"Don't say that."

"Why? It's true."

"It unsettles me."

"Why? That's neither your definition nor your problem."

She could hear the rigidity in him, the intensity of purpose that was anything but blind. Conversation was rather like trying to bend teak.

"Yes, you are." Simply, firmly.

"I. Am. Not." Each word snapped out crisp, as if annoyed. The irritated click of a tongue. "I am putting a plan into operation now - right now - to draw the enemy out of the shadows. Lure him to me. As a result you should have him in custody in the next few hours.

"Just respond fast when I call for you. OK?"

"OK. I'll be waiting."

"Good. The others will assist in their various ways. When you tell them what is really going on."

"They won't like it." She laughed, couldn't help it. "Clever men never like other people being cleverer than they are."

"That is what I do. They should be used to it." There was no humour in his voice, just slight irritation.

"That's one way of putting it."

Her wry response made them both laugh a little, a tiny intimacy that brought them closer again. Neither acknowledged it.

"Come home safe, Sherlock. Do that for me."

He did not reply, but ended the call.

She shook her head, closed her phone, put it back into her pocket and went to find the four men who would help her.

o0o0o

Consciousness returned with a rush. He had not expected it. And he wished it had not bothered. Unconsciousness kept him outside of events and of himself while he endured.

Nothing new about this feeling, though. Nothing at all. He was an addict, reformed or not. People expected it of him, going back to the allure of drugs. He understood drugs. Knew why he used them, how to bend himself into their shape, bend them to his will.

But this had not been his choice. This had been Baldissi behaving like Magnussen before him. How boring and predictable. But he would endure. and he would wait for his chance to get the upper hand. For it would come.

And until then he would listen. Because amongst one or two other notable flaws. Harry Baldwin was a boaster. And boasting was very informative. Especially when the man doing the boasting thought he was only talking to a dead man who still breathed. And that information would be worth the commitment it had taken to get up this close and personal. Worth the anger and pain and humiliation. Yes.

Inventory, now. Before bothering to open eyes.

Cool air on skin, but not actively cold. Naked then. Not outside, in a room. A room that smelt of very little other than cleaning fluid and anonymity. Hotel room? Vacant apartment? Abandoned house? No noise. No street sounds, no vibrations of people beyond the walls.

Cool air with little eddies of movement across his flanks and shoulders. Someone in the unit with him, then. Someone busy doing other things for the moment. Moment of relief and respite all round, then.

Smell. What smells? Oh, so predictable. Sweat, sex, semen, beer, cologne, the salty grease of potato crisps. Like boys at a football match, stag do, birthday party. Out on the slash. And he was what was being slashed. Oh, the irony.

Smell of a clean but not too clean woollen rug his face was turned down into. Could be worse.

Physical reactions. Nothing new. Or special. Or unknown.

Strange sweetly metallic taste in the mouth. GHB? Ketamine? Xanax? Punched in with opiates? Oh, lovely, cocktails. And how predictable. The same mix as at Appledore then. Ram, rape, regress, repeat. Boring.

Tension in muscles. Ache of stretch. Dry and sore throat, dry sore lips. Skin sticky, drying; as expected. Smell of blood but not copious bleeding, so no risk of death from injury as yet. All muscles and joints - tested them surreptitiously - could still stretch and flex. No restraints at the moment, apart from loosely around the wrists. Silken plaited cord. Probably thinking creatively with curtain tie-backs from the room he was in. Game still on, then.

All sensations and reactions were pushed down and away with deliberation, responses ruthlessly purged from one experience to the next, when memory rushed back in fine detail if, and as, and when needed.

From Appledore. From so many dark alleys and commercial waste bins and cheap hotels. From under park bushes and car park stairways when the fog of drugs and self loathing and the need for nourishment, any nourishment, became too much to bear.

School store rooms and dorms and jungle undergrowth and a kothi house of shining cheap silk, gold trinkets, cloying perfume, bright red saris trimmed with gold. Ankle bells…stopstopstop.

That way lay madness.

Deep breaths. Start _tumo_ breathing to become warm and centred again, distanced from fear and the physical self. Step back down into the Mind Palace and distance mental self from bodily self. Intellect from consciousness. Head from heart.

Pain. Delete.

Fear. Delete.

Expectation. Delete.

Reaction, repulsion. Delete.

Anger. Delete.

Reboot: Purpose.

Reboot: Eidetic mental recording of process. Override drugs.

Reboot: Eidetic mental recording of speech. Override drugs.

And relax. And wait. And muster reserves of ….oh…..everything.

 _I do not have friends. I do not expect help. Support. Knights on white chargers racing to the rescue. …_

 _No charger have I, and no sword by my side….._

 _No-one has given me anything to eat or drink, Freddie, and I don't think what I have swallowed will count somehow. Come on, Mycroft, use that great brain of yours to detect where I am. Relative to where I was taken from._

 _Get with it, Christina. Relate your brain to the known perpetrator. All the known perpetrators. Come on, Piet, use your local knowledge._

 _Find me! While there is still a me left to find._

 _And the knights are no more, and the dragons are dead._

 _Or their dragon slayer. Looks like it might be the dragon slayer dead, this time._

 _Oh well. Don't ask about the state I'm in…_

 _I can do this on my own, of course I can. Just waiting for my chance. Then I'll do it. Kill the bastard now I have him in reach._

 _But, boys. If you would trouble yourself to do your bit. It would be much appreciated if you stepped forward. Just a bit. And saved me the effort….and quickly._

"Hello again, Sherlock. Joel and me were just taking a little break for a drink and something to eat…."

A voice by his ear. A hand in his hair. Head lifted just enough for discomfort.

"Water…." he mumbled. "Please. Water…..the drugs….terrible thirst."

"Hear that, Joel? I'm sure he just asked for more drugs. That's the thing with reformed junkies, you know. Big appetite. High tolerance levels." A chuckle.

"Now, what do we think he would like this time? A spot of good quality GHB would make a nice change, would it not? That do you nicely, Sherlock?"

"I would prefer ice cream. If you have any?"

"And caviar?"

"Don't mix well."

"Thought not. Never mind. One nice little prick and you will forget all about caviar."

"You want me to scream?"

"Yeah. That would be fun. Let me give you the reason first, though. Don't rob me of the pleasure."

A shadow loomed. He closed his eyes and waited.

"Here we go then."

o0o0o

She had gathered all four men together. Now looked at them hard. Her friend Piet; watchful and controlled as always, but humming with energy as if poised on the balls of his feet.

The special agent Catalani: a stranger, frighteningly capable and detached, always looking as if amused at the ills of the world, yet burning with purpose and something old fashioned, something she had had difficulty finding the right word for. And had eventually settled on 'righteousness' - an outdated word that seemed to suit his age and natural gravitas.

And then the puzzles; the stranger pair, the Englishmen. Deeply contrasting and unreadable, whose only link could ever be Sherlock Holmes; the tall and impassively correct upper class English gentleman, hyper intelligent, disconcertingly objective. Almost impossible to believe this cold fish was Sherlock Holmes' older brother, and operating at a dizzying level of government power.

But she had met and worked with his type before. An emotionless chess player, who did not care if the pawns and rooks were human and not made of stone. Even when the main piece on the board was his own brother.

More of a puzzle to the policewoman was the doctor. Small, ordinary, self effacing. Hid great depths of courage and ability behind a quietly cultivated blandness. Sherlock Holmes' best friend. Not as unlikely a connection as it seemed at first sight, she assessed after watching him for some time, oddly fascinated by the clear blue eyes, the concentration, the compact understated military bearing.

For this was a man Christina instinctively trusted. And who had the trust of Sherlock Holmes. There was, she realised, probably no higher praise. And she wondered if he realised. Then decided that he did. But in his own, more ordinary way, he was as undemonstrative of his inner self as his younger and more striking friend.

"Gentlemen. Your attention, please." They all looked at each other. Not all friends or known to each other before this, but united by common purpose and Sherlock Holmes.

"I am about to take you elsewhere in the hospital. I have information to give you, and would appreciate it if you absorb this quietly, as you will be in a specialist side ward, and surrounded by patients and staff." She smiled. Realised it was her professional plastic smile, and led the way.

Lift, corridors, double doors. Footsteps that resounded on the concrete floors. They looked, she thought, like an inspectorate. Troubleshooters. Well….shooters, anyway. She tried not to smile at the irony of the thought.

But she heard John Watson huff a little breath of laughter by her side when he realised they were entering the Neo Natal Unit.

She slanted a look at him, and he turning smiling eyes at her.

"A long time since I did a rotation in neo-natal," he said. "My wife is pregnant. But far too close to delivery to even flash past a neonatal unit's doors."

"Oh, really? Congratulations!" She grinned at him, taken by surprise. "Boy or girl?"

"Girl."

"Fingers crossed for you," she said with honesty.

"Yeah. Thanks"

In the corridor either side of the main doors to the unit a young man and a woman sat on hard chairs outside a door. He was reading his phone, she flicked through a magazine. Both looked sleepy and bored.

"Your relation in there?" Christina asked brightly.

"Yeah. Complications. We're waiting to see…." said the young man amiably.

"You're doing fine," she said.

Then pushed open the door of the small side ward and gestured the four men in her wake forward and past her. All four looked at the young couple with darkly assessing eyes as they passed, but said nothing. The young couple looked back at them with level looks, studied blandness.

Then she firmly closed the door between them.

The high bed was surrounded by machines connected to a patient within who was almost hidden by them; from the doorway only the shape of feet could be seen at the end of the bed, tenting the smooth coverlet . A tiny cot stood beneath the window.

Only from where she stood, very close to it, could she see that the baby within was a dummy, and that a small covert surveillance camera sat by the pillow, giving every impression of being a pink teddy bear.

"No-one would look for an injured male patient here on the neo natal ward," Christine Ravn said, and stepped back so the four men could look. See what she already knew and had seen. "Sherlock's idea. His plan. When he rang me, even before the ambulance scooped them both up and brought them here….

"What he suggested seemed the safest course, in view of the damage from the knife. And what must be done as a result. Disappear the patient. Disappear his wife and daughter for the safety of them all.

"The risk - the expectation, even - was that he would die from his injuries. So we officially jumped the gun and indeed said he had died. Let everyone believe it. Because Sherlock is right - you are safest when you are dead. So, for the time being, he is dead."

She turned and looked at the men standing at the end of the bed. At the sandy haired man with the chubby face and the long eyelashes breathing quietly, unconscious there. Bandaged and in a hospital gown.

"Let me introduce you, gentlemen: this is Johan Magnussen. Alive and soon to be well. God and Sherlock Holmes allowing." She grinned, dipped her head a little in silent tribute. "With more than a little assistance from Colonel Bruhl and Doctor Watson."

There was a beat, full of silence and surprise. She thought Sherlock himself would have approved of that moment of speechless bafflement.

John Watson was the first to speak.

"Sneaky bugger. Typical. I'll kill him."

He grinned at her, slightly wild eyes. And she grinned back at him. But then, she knew he wasn't talking about Johan Magnussen.

She watched him lift the case notes with practised ease and read what was there. Look with silent neutral assessment at the monitors and the tubes leading in and out of the unconscious man.

"Touch and go for a bit there. He was lucky," he commented finally.

"Yes. Because he had you and Piet," Christina Ravn's voice was brusque, but she had a tolerant smile for the doctor. "Hr Magnussen is under guard, as you have seen. Meanwhile, his wife and children are in a safe place. Sherlock assures me this situation will not last long."

"Yes," remarked Alfredo Catalani, "About Sherlock….."

"Not here," the detective inspector said quietly. "I needed you to see our patient first. To convince you. But we don't want to wake him, do we? Follow me…."

She led them down two floors, and they commandeered a far alcove in the staff restaurant. No other customers at this time. Just five intense people.

Not until they were sitting down around a table, with drinks before them, did she return to the problem in hand.

"Sherlock," she said. "Where is he and what is he doing? And why are you all, such important people, here looking for him?"

John Watson held up his hands in mock submission.

"Nope. That's not me. Just his friend."

She turned her eyes to Mycroft Holmes. Who was concentrating hard on blowing cool air over the top of his hot coffee and avoiding her eyes.

"He is my little brother. His welfare is a major concern. Obviously."

""Piet?"

"Family concern. And a debt owed," Bruhl replied shortly. She already knew the answer to this. So why did she need to ask? Ah. Of course. Catalani. So he added: "Because of Sherlock, I was able to marry. Because of Sherlock, my husband, his brother, and his brother's wife, all avoided blackmail.

"Because of Sherlock, my then fiance avoided being killed. You might say finding and helping Sherlock now is the least I can do."

"Which leaves you, Mr Catalani? What is your interest in Sherlock Holmes?"

Alfredo Catalani looked around the table. And realised he had been manoeuvred into truth. But that he was also in the company of the aware and the wise. The rare situation of being with strangers he could trust and talk to on a level of understanding.

"I knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes until after the death of Charles Augustus Magnussen on Christmas Day," he began.

"I had been interested in Magnussen for some time. He had been on the edge of my radar for years. Because of his career start in porn magazines. Which is on the periphery of what I do: break down human trafficking and sex rings and save the victims. The increase in demand for sex purchase of victims grows larger and younger; more boys, more from African nations and Eastern Europe.

"This is a mushrooming and increasingly profitable world trade, and of great sadness and anger to me. It motivates me to work harder, do more. I am sure you understand?"

Everyone nodded calmly. Yes, they knew. Understood and appreciated.

"Interest in Magnussen grew as sex trafficking rocketed. A pattern had developed, his name increasingly mentioned. Proving it was the problem. The links between the sex and the blackmail became stronger, his victims of ever growing status. So no-one was prepared to speak against him. I started to dig deeper into his activities.

"Also his right hand men. Carlsson - who died with him that night - was a cousin and had many links in the sex trade across Europe, back to even before the start of Magnussen's own career.

"The Ghanian was known to us in his own right, had started in Romeo crime, and soon stepped up into darker deeds.

The youngest man, Baldissi, was always seen as the wild card. Something of a bagman for Magnussen and the others; would do anything for the thrill. I had thought of him as a minor player - headstrong and not over bright. Everyone thought that, ton be fair.

"When Magnussen and Carlsson died I did not believe that public story of a suicide murder pact for one moment. Nor the sexual tryst or treachery theory. Those men were too close, and had been close for too long for that. So I asked a contact of mine connected to both MI5 and MI6 for the truth."

"My brother-in-law's mother-in-law," Piet Bruhl suggested with an air of confident finality.

Alfredo Catalani shot him a wild look. "Really? A family connection to you? How surprising! Or perhaps not." He paused and thought for a moment. No-one interrupted his silence.

" Maggie Driscoll…"

"Hang on," John Watson interjected. "Explain things to the idiot of the party. Who's Maggie Driscoll?"

"Mrs Driscoll runs what might be described as a high level escort agency. For celebrities, diplomats, CEO's and the like, major players who would find it difficult to obtain the services of companionships for social events and the like. Intelligent, trustworthy companions, that is."

"Are you telling me she is a spymaster for pillow talk?"

"Doctor Watson, please!" Mycroft exclaimed. "That sounds like the assessment of a red top tabloid. Hardly worthy of you….."

"That's an affirmative, then, Mr Holmes. Thank you." Catalani grinned briefly. "Mrs Driscoll told me the truth of the events surrounding Magnussen's death. And that was when Sherlock Holmes came onto my radar.

"I instantly understood why Magnussen had been manoeuvring him. What he had done to him. How he could even be blackmailing Sherlock. But that Sherlock actually killed the man to protect….others."

He had the grace to not look at John Watson or Mycroft Holmes.

"To protect so many others. Before himself. I could not speak to Sherlock because at that time he was in solitary confinement in Paddington Green police station. But the Ghanian was in custody. I went to London and was only one of several people who interviewed Simeon Kosi Nzema. He is a professional at what he does, so was not giving much away.

"Then I discovered Baldissi had escaped from Appledore I took a closer look at Baldissi. Discovered from Maggie Driscoll that as Harry Baldwin he had been turned down by her organisation Magenta Rose; and also that he had been rejected by the Mafia.

"That the double rejection had made him mad - in any definition of that term - and that the game was still on. His game became deeper and more important than anyone had thought. That the sex ring we knew as The Charlemagne Level was still operating despite the loss of it's head.

"So it seemed to me Sherlock was going to be a key to solving this." He sipped coffee, intent and thoughtful.

"I had intended to just appear on his doorstep, but then Baldissi staged another bit of taunting and games playing and set up the silly little stunt with the taxi. So when Sherlock stepped away from all that to follow the people who had done it, I followed him. Saw him handle himself against Baldissi and his cousins. Stepped in only when necessary. When it looked like someone was going to die.

"Sherlock was angry with me for letting Baldissi go that night. But I had fatter fish to fry. And Sherlock understood that. So, now. If Sherlock Holmes dies. It will be my fault. So I am doing all I can to stop that. Do you understand?"

The four other people sitting at the table looked at him. They nodded. They understood.

Alfredo Catalani looked down and away, and gave a stiff little nod in return.

"And now we have to find him. How can someone like him be lost in a city as small as Aalborg? It is beyond belief!"

The frustration finally showed in his voice.

He was not reassured when Christina Ravn patted his hand.

o0o0o

The drugs were fading. Ketamine and GHD had a strong effect, but were also quick to deteriorate in the system. He had lost track at the number of times he had floated back to the surface of himself, became aware of what was happening to him, the effects he catalogued every time he was aware.

Lying on his back this time amid a heap of bedding, hands across his still naked stomach. Too many distasteful human smells. Sweat and sex and blood. Blood.

Something cold and straight lay against his ribs. And he knew instantly it was the misericorda stiletto.

"Fav'rit toy…" he mumbled, and one uncoordinated hand tried to flap the steel weapon from where it lay along his body. While the other hand dragged it back down.

In response his already falling hand was knocked away and the knife pressed harder. He felt a little line of warm blood bleed out onto his skin. But he felt the pressure cut not at all. Ket, then. It was Ket he was recovering from.

A powerful anaesthetic used mainly on animals. Loss of feeling, paralysis of muscles, distortion of reality when taken by humans. Floating feeling, detached from pain and sensation - 'entering the k-hole,' as it was called. Hallucinations, panic, yes, all those.

"Don't touch me."

"Too late for that, poncey posh boy," Baldissi's voice drifted in. It was his hand leaning on the knife. No surprise there then, either.

"Harry….stop. Harry, c'mon. That's enough."

The new voice was apologetic. Hesitant. But oddly determined.

"Shut up, Joel. And my name is ENRICO!"

The angry shout made Sherlock Holmes flinch. He looked at Enrico Baldissi's little helpmate. Taller than Harry, but younger and slimmer, loose limbed, still not grown into his height and bodyweight. Dark and good looking, with a natural confidence that had been rattled by the events if the night.

Too much for him, sll this. Too much evil and harm. A bad night. Hard work, growing up over the course of one night. Sherlock Holmes would have felt sympathy; empathy even. If that had not been burnt out of him long ago.

He watched the boy reach forward, eyes flickering between torturer and victim. On an edge. Boldness and confidence curdled.

 _What did I say to Christina? A criminal virgin, was it? A possible advantage to be used? However little?_

"No, it's not. That was great granddad. Stop playacting now. This is serious."

"Why is it serious, arsehole?"

"It's serious because you are gonna kill this bloke in a minute, if you're not careful. Haven't you done enough? Made the poor sod suffer enough?"

"Shut up, Joel. This piece of shit will never suffer enough. Not for what he did, for killing my boss…."

"Magnussen was a bad man, Harry, and from what you've said it sounds like self defence. That Magnussen had been torturing…."

"Lies! don't buy them!"

Sherlock Holmes sucked in air and engaged thought process. Started to try, to begin, to speak.

"Listen to the boy, Harry. Knows what he's talking about…."

"Enrico!"

There it was again. The loss of control, the delusion of identity, the madness.

"No. Harry it is. Just stupid little Harry Baldwin from Clerkenwell. Not a class act operating for Magenta Rose. Not a Mafia _capo._ Just little old Harry, who left his mum and dad behind because they didn't buy his lies or delusions of grandeur and status. Pathetic."

"Shut up."

Sherlock Holmes turned onto his side with a groan of pain so he was facing Enrico Baldissi and Joel Barbarossa.

Gathered his knees under him and half rose. Gathering energy into his shaking limbs, purpose from somewhere beyond the woolliness in his head, He knew drugs. He knew a lot of drugs. He knew how to function through drugs. He could do this.

But he hurt, and he was drug addled and tired beyond boneless. But he would still leap up. In a moment. And he would get his hands round Harry Baldwin's throat. And he would choke the bastard to death. And he would swat the insignificant naïve cousin aside on the way up.

Just another minute, when the room stopped spinning and the floor levelled out.

"You are pathetic, Harry."

"Oh, yeah. Just look at yourself. Then tell me who's pathetic."

Sherlock Holmes grinned, shot a look from under his brow.

 _John Watson had often said I could talk anyone to death. I'll try doing that until the strength comes back….._

"You think you've beaten me? When it takes two of you and a hypodermic needle to even get close? Call that fair? Call that having the upper hand? Like hell!

"You think you have me at your mercy? That just because you've fucked me and demeaned me and hurt me, it means you have won? Pathetic. Winning battles doesn't mean you win the war. Don't you know that?

"There are people out there trying to find me. And they will. Find me. And then they will find you. Because I was the bait to lure you into the open, Harry boy. And you are such an arrogant tit you fell for it.

"You were safe in the shadows. But now you are out in the light of day. And even if you kill me, kill me here and now, it won't matter. Because there are too many people after you now, Harry Boy. And if you kill me now, then they'll get you for that, too.

"Wouldn't like to be in your place….."

"Shut the fuck up!"

The back handed blow caught him unawares: he still wasn't reacting at survival speed. The hard slap made his head jolt and split his lip. He tasted fresh blood flow into his mouth, but was more interested in checking with his tongue to make sure his teeth were still intact.

He rocked backwards and put a hand down to stop himself falling. Tried to. Fell anyway. Hands weren't working properly, still held together with the curtain tie.

But the fall back into the bedding took him down and out of arm's reach.

 _Arms reach. Harm's reach. So what's the bloody difference at this stage of the game?_

"Harry, stop! You're frightening me now. You've done enough to punish this bloke. I'm tired and I'm sick of it. It stopped being fun hours ago. This is just….."

"Just what? Revenge? Sport? Yeah, both of them, Joel. What's up? Not got the stomach to be an adult?"

Joel Barbarossa, dark and handsome like his cousin, threw up his hands. Anger and disgust warring for domination.

"You call this being an adult? Being grown up? This ain't grown up. This is just nasty and spiteful."

"Oh! You're just getting that now? Well, hate to tell you this, little baby Joel. This is what I do. It's how to get and work power. And it works!"

"You're proud of this? Acting like a madman? Torturing this bloke beyond endurance and shame?"

Sherlock Holmes lay curled back into the bedding and watched the argument happen. There was nothing he could do to help or intercede. He had tried.

 _When thieves fall out…_

 _Don't ask about the state I'm in….don't ask me what I think if you, you might not get the answer that you want me to…..._

"Shut up, Joel. You know nothing about this. What a nasty slippery bastard Sherlock Holmes is. How he needs to suffer. And how much I need to give it to him."

"I don't care any more, Harry. This has turned my guts."

"It's Enrico! How many bloody times….?"

There was that shout again.

Enrico Baldissi, eyes wild, body clenched, spun away from Sherlock Holmes to face his other tormentor. The stiletto in his hand caught the light. The arm flew out on full extension as Joel Barbarossa caught it with an uncoordinated grab half way up the forearm.

His older cousin snarled loudly. There was a second of tussle - no more than two - as the two bodies closed upon each other in anger and then a horrible wet sound that Sherlock Holmes recognised too well.

For a split second the two bodies were poised like ballet dancers, frozen in time. And then the younger man flopped backwards, suddenly boneless, to slump against the wall.

How quickly the pall of death covered a body and took it over. How swiftly eyes glazed over and the soul departed. This was not the first time Sherlock Holmes had watched it happen. He was always immune to it. Almost always. As soon as he had registered what had happened - the moment was too recognisable - he looked away and at Harry Baldwin instead.

This was the moment when Sherlock Holmes should have had an advantage to take. When Enrico Baldissi should have realised what had happened. When Harry Baldwin realised he had just killed his younger cousin.

In blood hot or cold, the result was the same. When there was regret and pause and horror. When he looked down at the person he had killed and the thing he had become. That Joel Barbarossa had become.

Instead of taking that moment of recognition Enrico Baldissi stood upright. Took three steps over to what had been his cousin. Checked the boy was no longer breathing. Wiped their great grandfather's stiletto clean on Joel's shirt, where it left a red line to match the small puncture mark underneath the ribs.

For a second Sherlock Holmes though he would be sick. Seeing such an unemotional reaction to death. That small punch of blood through a white shirt. How it took his mind back to Charles Augustus Magnussen's penthouse flat. And the bullet that had punched a similar small but devastating hole in him. Had nearly killed him.

He sucked a breath and waited. Baldissi would turn back to him in a second. And then he would have him. Would take him down then, as he stumbled a little in normal, human regret and reaction.

Hands tied together would not stop him delivering a rabbit punch, a dagger stroke, an Ottoman slap, a sleeper hold. That brief hesitation was all the advantage, all the chance he would need.

But even as he drew himself together to make that move Enrico Baldissi turned to him. There was a smile on his face that turned into an obscene grin.

"Poor lad," he said almost absently. "But such a waste of space."

He had turned briskly on his heel and was facing Sherlock Holmes again.

"Bloody hell, that felt good. An adrenaline high is that called, Sherly boy? You would know if anyone does. Is this how you felt after you shot Charles through the face?" He took two steps back. Dropped to his knees by Sherlock Holmes' head.

"Know what is needed after a brilliant kick to the brain like that? A kick somewhere else to celebrate."

He grinned. Stabbed the long thin knife into the floor just an inch from hazy storm grey eyes. Where it vibrated in wait.

Picked up yet another hypodermic syringe from the coffee table just a reach away. And full of a pale liquid.

"Fancy a quick shag, posh boy? No, don't bother answering. It won't make any difference."

This time the consulting detective refused to close his eyes. Watched every step of the pain and indignity coming. Held on to his anger.

"You are so predictable." He spit out the words, voice so low with disgust and repressed anger he could taste the bile in his throat.

Which was the last thing he really knew for some time.

o0o0o

A chilly late January afternoon in London.

Chris Walsh had had a busy day and was back on duty at the revolving doors at the glossy entrance to the Savoy Hotel.

It had been a busy day. Work and a lunch break sneaked into the security office, checking, finding, texting Sherlock.

Other than that there were visitors and clients and queries, Politeness and smiles. Cars and the usual comings and goings. He enjoyed his job. Enjoyed the endless stream of people who passed him by.

The endless stream of black cabs and smart cars that made the broad sweep of the entrance towards the hotel was all part of that. Today there had been taxis and Bentleys and Mercedes and more. But it was the silver grey Rolls Royce Ghost that caught his attention and made the hackles on the back of his neck stand to attention.

He registered in one slow blink tinted the reinforced window glass to repel sub machine gun fire. Side skirts that hid a reinforced bomb resistant floor pan. A dropped suspension and wider wheels than normal. But standard number plates, no personalisation, no diplomatic badge.

He stepped forward, as normal, to open the rear door closest to him, to tip his top hat in formal salutation, to murmur: "Good afternoon. Welcome to the Savoy."

Two young people got out. Man and woman. Both in dark suits, with spectacles and smooth hair. Neither looked at him, did not speak or smile. Just made for the door at speed. Both carrying laptop computer bags. Invisible, anonymous nerds on a mission, he decided.

He let them pass. Knew what they were about to do, even though he did not know who they were. Not exactly. He watched them disappear inside, looked back to the driver of the car.

Saw a broad shouldered man in his fifties with a disciplined crew cut and bright all seeing eyes above a still fit solid body contained within a well cut suit. This was a man he recognised. As a distinct and very special type.

The window beside the driver purred down.

"Chris Walsh?" asked the driver.

"Yes, sir."

"Don't 'sir' me. Civvy street now. Both of us. Message for you."

"Yes, Sergeant." A grin. They shared it.

"Message from Sherlock. Thanks for the help. He'll see you right when he's back. Well, either him or me. Someone, anyway."

"No need for that. I owe him."

"We all owe him, son. Doesn't mean he'll let you pay him back, though. Thanks anyway. Your country needs you."

From the invisibility of the car interior he sketched a brisk army salute. Chris Walsh snapped the sketch of a reply to his top hat and grinned.

There was a nod, and the Ghost drifted away again. Leaving Chris Walsh tring to prise the satisfied grin off his face.

o0o0o

The cold air on his face and shoulders, combined with the pain across his chest, woke him and he opened his eyes with difficulty.

Found himself looking straight down. Thirty feet, perhaps, straight down to the ground. And his heart kicked with the shock of it, and with a sudden unusual vertigo, and that ridiculous lurching instinct for survival, and so he instinctively tried to fling himself backwards and to safety.

A hard hand pressing down in the middle of his back kept him firmly where he was. The pain of the something unyielding pressing up into his chest took away his breath and his power of speech.

Half in, but also half way out, of what he quickly realised was a four storey apartment block window. Looking down grey walls onto grey concrete in a grey dark day.

The cold air was the air of a Danish January morning, and the relentless pain across his chest was the aluminium window frame, a hard bar pressed into his upper body producing a compressed feeling not unlike heart failure.

 _Pressing to death_. _Piene forte et dure. Oh bloody great. Get out of this one, Holmes!_

A grey, hopeless dawn that now had no-one in it but himself and Enrico Baldissi.

"I was going to shoot you. Just shoot you," said the voice conversationally. "Just like you shot Charles. Put the gun barrel to your forehead and shoot your face off. Just like you did with him."

The voice in his ear was slightly ragged, and he could feel the hot breath against his face. Ragged after a long sleepless night, but still determined. He felt the cold steel barrel of a pistol press against his left cheek.

"But then I thought: wouldn't it be much more fun, and much more fitting, if you flew from a high building, just like you did before? Just the threat of the fun to make certain you went splat out of the window when you died. Soft body, hard ground. Great impression!

"But to do it that right it had to look as if it was all you. As if you had shot yourself by an open window. So you had arranged yourself to fall out and made sure you really were dead this time. Really dead. Not pretend dead. For once. The final once, that is.

"Something clever enough and complicated enough to mark the death of Sherlock bloody Holmes. How am I doing so far?"

A hard shove bore him up and forwards, and Sherlock Holmes flailed his arms, uncoordinated, groggy, to try to keep his balance and his body the right side of the window frame. He was not far from toppling out, almost beyond his point of physical balance.

He knew that, just as he knew there was no point in dying - _not_ _now, not right now_ \- not without taking Enrico Baldissi with him.

After the long ravaged night it took time to recognise he was still naked, and that the long shallow cuts in his skin were still leaking blood. Exsanguinating.

 _Exsanguinating. Lovely word that. Had a musical ring to it. Ex- san-guin - a -ting. Far too pretty a word to mean bleeding to death. The action and draining a person, animal or organ of blood. So was that all he had become now?_

 _No longer a person. Too aware to be an animal. Perhaps an organ. A mere organ of underachievement. How appropriate. Still, what the fuck: cuts no worse than an average night in a BDSM club or a kothi house. Had suffered worse._

Blood and pain. Superficial pain on his arms and torso. Hot, angry, spiteful little cuts that tortured the epidermis: sharp like paper cuts.

Not deep, angry, life sapping cuts. Not bleeding out, numb and nauseous cuts. Painful, distracting. But manageable.

He closed his mind to the pain in his skin. In his chest. Between his legs and buttocks where the bleeding felt to be a different issue altogether, around his prostate where the stretch and the bruising was enough to make him double over and vomit. To scream and run away and hide.

Which was just too easy and humiliating a course to follow. And anyway: this was nothing new. He calmed his brain and took conscious control of his mind and his body.

 _I am not letting this pain in! Not any of it! I am not!_

"Or," the voice droned on in a cheerily confident tone: " I could just stick my faithful _misericorda_ in your gut. Or your gullet. Or through your eye. I have such a wonderful range of alternatives.

"Would a little of all of them be too greedy, do you think? Overegging the pudding?"

"Dunno. Don't care. Hardly subtle," he rasped. His voice felt and sounded rough. Mouth hurting. Lips split inside and out.

"I don't want to be subtle. I want you to die as painfully as possible, and I want you to die so you are not a tidy heap in a smart suit and overcoat bleeding prettily onto the pavement from one little head wound.

"This time I want you to be naked and abased and the human equivalent of a dead mongrel in a gutter. So everyone knows what a freak and a pervert Sherlock Holmes is. Was."

'Come away, come away death. And in sad cyprus let me be laid," he mumbled blankly in reply.

Words running away with themselves for their own sake; an appearance of nonchalance, a disconnection of feelings from fate, a delaying conversation that meant nothing, a disassociation tactic. "'Fly away, fly away breath…' Yeah, I guess that'll do, young Harry."

"Beating you is getting so boring now, Sherlock."

"You're not beating me, because I am not in competition with you. You are just amusing yourself. Going to upgrade to the next level after killing me and start pulling wings off flies? Stealing pennies from a blind man's begging bowl? Fucking babies? All that too hard for you so you have to make do with sorting me instead?"

"If you don't shut up…I might not kill you after all."

"What? Delay the pleasure? Ruin the image you have been building up so carefully then show you haven't the bottle? Can't do it after all? Thought these thungs were always easier after the first? Gain the upper hand, the kudos, Harry. By killing me."

"I've fucked you senseless. Robbed you of your pride. Your dignity. So I win."

"Yeah? Then why am I still here? Still talking? You're an amateur, Harry. Always will be. And if I don't get you, someone else will."

"Brave words, and I don't believe any one of them. What else can I do to convince you, Sherlock?"

"You can't." He swallowed dry. It hurt. "Water, Give me water. Please."

He sobbed then. Face collapsing in pain. Tears flowing out of the window to spatter invisibly down onto the path below.

"Begging now? How predictable."

"Yeah. I know. But it's no big deal, just a physical thing. Lubricant for the throat."

"You've had lots of lubricant. Throat and more."

"True. But that's not the sort of lubricant I mean. Or why."

TO BE CONTINUED…..

 **Author's notes:**

Pien forte et dure: In French, 'hard and forceful punishment' under law in which a defendant who stands mute and refuses to plea is pressed to death by more and more stones being placed upon the chest to stop breathing. Or simple torture for information. Very popular in the Elizabethan era. Choose it as an alternative to being burnt at the stake? Or hung drawn and quartered? Or the blood eagle? Tough call.

Tumo Breathing: Ancient and little known Buddhist breathing technique to still and warm the body, when in cold places, by concentration alone. It is said that an expert can generate so much body heat flammable material pressed to the stomach can be made hot enough to smoulder and form the basis of a warming fire.

Songs going through Sherlock's head include Jan Struther's _When A Knight Won His Spurs_ and Fleetwood Mac's _Oh Well Part 1_ by Peter Green. The song/poem is Shakespeare - Twelfth Night.


	15. Chapter 15

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 15

 _If I bring you down I'll bleed out for you. So I bare my skin, and I count my sins, and I close my eyes and I take it in, and I'm bleeding out. Bleeding out for you._

 _(Grant/Mosser Bleeding Out for Imagine Dragons.)_

He was at the kitchen sink, scraping noisily and energetically at the burnt bubbles of carbon on the bottom of the saucepan. Spaghetti Bolognese sauce as ruined by Enrico Baldessi.

Who had put the meal on the hob to cook. To help set the scene to create the scent of food and a homely atmosphere to lure Sherlock Holmes into his trap.

"You don't have to do that," she suggested mildly to the stranger in her kitchen.

"Actually I do. I bloody do." The repressed anger in the quietly spoken words was so vehement she would have stepped back from it ordinarily. But this time she came forwards, leant to one side, ducked her head to see into John Watson's face.

Tight, blank with intense concentration, Eyes firmly fixed in the bottom of the saucepan as if all the answers to all the world's questions were there.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

He grinned briefly into the saucepan and released a torrent of tension by doing so.

"Never been any good at waiting," he said. "The enemy to attack. Patients to come round. Sherlock to reappear…." the words stuck thickly in his throat.

"We have to wait for the tracker to work so we can find him and then go and get him," she reassured, determined to be positive, even though she knew the odds.

"What if he isn't given anything to eat or drink? The trackers aren't activated? What if he's already dead?"

The detective inspector blanked the questions; the friend sighed and tried to be positive, and just kept talking..

"We don't have a clue where he might be. No-one can find any associates nor family for Baldissi in Denmark. Catalani has tried tapping his contacts. Neither the criminal underworld nor the Mafia here know him. And nor do you.

"He's like a ghost, the little bastard. A ghost who has spirited Sherlock away," John Watson shook his head in frustration. "I warned Sherlock…..but he's obsessed with this one. Abnormally obsessed, even for him. And he's at the end of his tether. I can tell. So much has happened to him over the last few months. And as for the last few days…." he shook his head and scratched savagely at the pan. "Totally manic."

He sucked in a deep and angry breath.

"He won't tell me what's going on. Or Mycroft. He just blazes away, all on his own. Do you know what he did? To stop me coming with him, stop me being here to help him? He drugged me! Me!"

She laughed, couldn't help it, and he flashed a sharp look at her, almost angry, before he realised how absurd that admission would sound to anyone else.

"He is Sherlock," she said deliberately. "You are his best friend. What else would you expect him to do? To protect you?"

Hands paused in the sink. They both took a beat.

"Are you his girlfriend or something?" The question came out very quietly but tremulous, rough round the edges, and he wasn't looking at her when he asked.

"Would that bother you?"

"I'm a married man, about to become a father," he replied, "And, to be fair, my wife is petite and blonde. Your exact opposite."

"That's not what I meant."

"Ah. Sorry." He had the grace to blush a little. "Most people think we are - were - an item. Working together, sharing a flat. But no. I'm not jealous if you are his girlfriend, if that's what you are asking. He needs someone to love him. And I'm…..on a different page of the book."

In his words and his expression she read the complexity behind his reply, and took pity on him.

"I'm not his girlfriend. We decided ages ago I'm too old for him. But a friend, I hope. Yes."

He gave her a curt nod and averted his eyes. Scraped at the saucepan some more. She answered the question he did not ask.

"I met him last year, when he was recuperating from being shot. First at Piet's wedding. We danced. Then later, when he was a lot better, he solved a serial killing for me."

"Yeah. He does that."

" I hesitated to ask him. But I could not have done it without him. I think he found the case easy. He is…." she sought a word. Found one. "Formidable."

"Yeah. He's that too."

"To take the case when he was so ill….I had not realised how ill he had been."

"He was shot and he died." John Watson was having difficulty pushing the words out. Felt her concentration sharpen. "Did he tell you? He died on the operating table. And then he came back to life. His strength of purpose is…." he repeated her word. "Formidable."

"I did not know that. What happened to him? Did he surprise a burglar or something?"

"You might say that," was the terse reply. Then, flatly: "It was my wife. My wife. Shot him."

Even as a hardened police officer, Christina Ravn was surprised into silence.

"She was trying to protect me," The words sounded like excuse, even to him. "Sherlock took her by surprise. He wasn't…."

"The person she meant to shoot?"

He nodded. Concentration was deep inside the saucepan.

"Who was it?"

"Magnussen."

"But…. Sherlock shot Magnussen."

"Mary set out to shoot him first. Months earlier." John Watson lifted a resigned shoulder and flashed her a look. "It's complicated."

"I get that. He never pressed charges? Silly question. Of course not, or he wouldn't still be fighting to protect you. And her."

"I know. Why do you think I'm so worried? About what he's doing? Now, at this minute? What I owe him?"

She put a hand on his shoulder.

"No-one can make him do what he doesn't want to do. He walks into the fire knowing the heat - ready to burn."

"You don't get it. He says - always says - that he owes me. Because I shot someone and saved his life. He won't understand that he saved my life first. If he hadn't saved me, I wouldn't have been there to save him."

"It's not just you he risks burning for," she said bluntly; realising this was no conversation for a police officer to get into. "Why do you think we are all here, ready and waiting to help? We all owe him, John."

"I hadn't realised…..his stay in Denmark…had been so…important to him."

"He didn't tell you because he didn't want to worry you."

"Don't be kind to me. Just don't. I don't deserve it."

"Sherlock is unique. Complicated. Being his friend carries the same level of complex."

"Do not be kind. Find me excuses." The words snapped out, guilt and anger combined. "I have failed him lately. I know that. Trying to get back to what we were. Trying to find out who he is. And why. But this thing. This is something else, Christina."

It was the first time he had called her by name, and she could feel the frustrated despair in him. "This started out as just tidying up after a case, getting the one that got away. But it has turned into something else. Something more.

"Something more personal to Sherlock, and I don't know what. It's eating both of us alive. Him because he knows. Me because I don't."

"You know what he's like, Plays his cards close to his chest."

Yes! Arrogant, stupid, clever….!" He stopped himself with an effort. Changed the subject. "I'm going to make hot drinks, if that's OK? What are the others up to?"

"Waiting," she said plainly. "Piet is watching TV; or rather, pointing his face at the screen. Mycroft is doing furious things on his laptop. Freddie has disappeared, said he had something to do. An errand for Sherlock. Didn't say what."

"Secrecy is catching," John Watson agreed.

Abandoned the saucepan to soak and reached for the kettle.

o0o0o

Alfredo Catalani had always felt it was ironic; that he should share his name with a famous composer, yet be tone deaf. Not that walking into the _Musikkens Hus_ gave him a sense of inferiority or anything like that. He zoned the music aspect out of what he had to do next. His purpose was professional, and Sherlock Holmes had told him what to do.

He was directed to the backstage green room, where a pretty fine boned young girl and a dark haired man were sitting at a table in front of the remains of a late meal, with notes and manuscript papers around them.

They looked up as he approached them.

"Miss Almedova? Mr de Bono? Good evening. My name is Alfredo Catalini. I have been sent to see you by Sherlock Holmes."

At the mention of the name the questioning looks turned to smiles.

"He did not come to the master class or the concert this evening. Is he not well?"

The girl, slight and pale pretty, looked sixteen but was in fact twenty three; he had looked her up on the internet. Read about her past as a musical prodigy, her current punishing schedule travelling the world, going to the most unlikely destinations to take classical music to new and growing markets.

De Bono was her manager, had been for the past four years. A good musician himself in his youth. Second desk standard in a moderate orchestra in maturity. Not up to his client's ability. He could have made a fair living as a musician. But had reached greater heights in management attached to the winsome pale girl of growing fame and appreciation.

"He is working," Catalani replied smoothly. The truth certainly. But anything and everything more the Italian steered his mind away from; the thought of what might be happening to Sherlock Holmes now. If he wasn't already dead. He closed his mind to that possibility, and pressed on.

"He had told me he might be busy. He never stops working, that one. What can we do for you?"

She had a light voice with a charming Russian accent. And she was smiling at him.

 _Fond of Sherlock then. Probably captivated by him. But has no idea who and what he is. Probably for the best._

"He told me to ask you to explain something for me. To explain the connection between three names: Andrea, Guiseppe and Bartolomeo. He said you would know."

"Of course we know," Marco de Bono reassured immediately. "Why did he not tell you himself, though? He is bound to know."

"I think," Alfredo Catalini said thoughtfully; because he had wondered about that himself. "I think he wanted me to hear the truth from someone who knew it, but was not directly connected to the puzzle themselves. So I would learn the answer from someone else, so I would believe it."

"Marco de Bono nodded his agreement. "Yes. That sounds like Sherlock."

He and the girl exchanged smiles. And this time it was the girl who spoke. Who opened the door and let him through the blank wall to the other side of his lack of knowledge.

""Four hundred years ago Andrea was an apprentice violin maker in the famous Amati factory in Italy. Eventually he set up in business on his own in Cremona, and became lauded for his violas - big violins to you, Mr Catalani," she explained with a smile, watching his frown of incomprehension. "Where in time he was joined by his sons. The younger son was called Guiseppe. Who became known as one of the greatest violin makers of all time.

"And one of Guiseppe's sons was named Bartolomeo, who is considered the greatest violin maker of them all.

"Stradivarius may be the most famous lutier, but he lived for a very long time, twice as long as Bartolomeo, and he had a business head on his shoulders. There are many more Stradivari than the violins made by all three generations of Andrea's family. And today experts and musicians still argue which are the better, the Stradivari or the Guarneri." She grinned at him.

"Naturally I prefer the Guarneri; a deeper resonance, a darker and more mellow tone."

"Guarneri?" Catalani echoed.

"Yes. My violin is a Guarneri."

She reached down to the floor beside her and lifted a dark violin case. Opened it and took out a gleaming instrument.

Catalani knew he should be impressed. But the culture and the finesse of it was alien to him. To him it was just a violin, and it was the first time he had even been close to one.

"This is 400 years old? And you own it?"

"Almost 400 years old. she nodded, plucked the strings. "Sherlock owns and plays a Guarneri also. I regret, but I do not own this beautiful thing on which I make my music. They are very expensive."

"How expensive?"

"The last Guarneri that came onto the market, in 2010, had a starting price of $18 million. But the final price has never been revealed. So you may guess the amount."

"So who owns your Guarneri?"

"My Guarneri is known as the Holderness Guarneri. After a part of East Yorkshire in England, where it's last long term owner lived. It is now owned by a company based here in Aalborg, called Magnus Industries."

"And who is Magnus Industries?" he asked politely. He could feel his brain throbbing, his head staring to feel light and something apart from him. Because he suddenly knew what the answer would be before she told him.

"The company also generously supports my teaching programme for young musicians. Which takes me all around the world, and is why I am here at the moment, teaching and playing. I was in London over Christmas….."

"Were you?" he asked in surprise. Felt a touch lightheaded. On account of the light bulb that had just switched on in his head. "May I show you something?"

He took out his phone, swiped into his inbox and the CCTV grabs Chris Walsh had provided and Sherlock Holmes had forwarded to him. Isolated the one with a young boy in the corridor of the Savoy Hotel. Showed it to her: a hunch but no hope.

"I know it's only a rear view, and not all the face is visible," he apologised. This was the longest of long shots, in all respects. "….but do you know who this is?"

Alyssa Almedova and Marco de Bono peered at the screen. After a few seconds both nodded.

"Yes. This is one of my pupils in London. His name is Miles Barton. He is a great talent. Very handsome boy, also shy and quiet. He is a fine talent, desperate to learn. But I don't understand. What is he doing on his own with Mr Magnussen?"

"Charles Augustus Magnussen, is that?"

"Of course not. This is his brother, Pedder."

"Pedder?"

"Of course - Pedder. Pedder Magnussen is my benefactor. He sponsors my educational programme. Supports it and comes all around the world to take part in the work. He is obsessed with classical music. H\e lives and breathes it, the development of young talent. Music owns his heart.

"And he owns my Guarneri. This Guarneri."

She beamed at him. She had no idea what she had just said, or the importance of it.

For once Alfredo Catalani could not feel his feet.

But it was his phone ringing as it sat in his hand that brought him back to himself. Took him away from new dark thoughts, too many coincidences and connections. Too much that had already been within the overview of Sherlock Holmes.

He knew. Sherlock already knew and he had not said. Why had he not said? What was Sherlock Holmes hiding when he was also revealing? What….?

Christina Ravn's voice spoke to him. Checking up. Wanting to know where he was, if he was OK. He could hear the strain in her voice.

And now he needed to get back to her flat, to share his new knowledge.

He thanked de Bono and Alyssa, excused himself to the Russian violinist and her manager.

"We are happy to help. Please give Sherlock our best wishes. Tell him we missed him today. And that we hope to see him tomorrow, for our final concert."

He felt his mouth speaking pleasantries, and yet had no idea what he said.

Now he ran down the corridor to the lift, left the music house, and headed back towards Christina Ravn at a fast, concentrated walk.

o0o0o

She had made a simple pasta dish - more basic nutrition than meal - but no-one felt like sitting formally at the table, so they all ate on their knees, all five of them, sitting in a loose distracted circle around the television no-one was really watching, and none of them actually tasting what they ate, but none of them admitting it either.

Mycroft Holmes twiddled with a piece of fusilli in his uneaten bowl of food and glared at it as if it had done something to offend him. Christina Ravn brought him a fresh glass of iced water and rested a hand on his shoulder.

The British government was a mystery to her. She could see the similarities between him and his younger brother, but also the differences. She wondered how they got on, when they both shared such high intelligence and strongly repressed emotions within themselves.

"Anything else I can get you, Mycroft?"

"Too kind," he demurred quietly, which she translated as 'no thank you.'

Alfredo Catalani had returned to the apartment with a report of his conversation with Almedova and de Bono.

"And what does that tell us?" Mycroft Holmes had asked. Sounding like a bored schoolteacher who already knew the answer.

"That for some reason the Guarneri violins are a link to all this," Piet Bruhl answered. "But what sort of link?"

"Well, said John Watson, "We know Padder Magnussen owns a Guarneri through his company, and that he is very interested in classical music. The violin, and supporting young violinists specifically. That Alyssa Almedova plays his Guarneri. And that Sherlock saved her when thieves were trying to steal that Guarneri."

"But what's the point in stealing such a famous and expensive instrument? It's a bit like stealing the Mona Lisa - no market for it."

"Stealing something like that is usually to order," offered Catalani.

"Guarneri's do not come two a penny. Sherlock has one. It was our mother's," Mycroft Holmes commented with detachment.

"It's worth the connection someone may choose to make," Christina Ravn said thoughtfully. "The logical answer is that Sherlock was just in the right place at the right time to save the violin and the girl. The nasty logical answer is that the crime was staged to draw Sherlock in. Knowing he would not hesitate to rescue."

"With the easiest assumption that it was all Baldissi. Baldissi who had sworn to pick off Sherlock, and anyone connected with the start of it all - Charles Augustus Magnussen's attempts to blackmail Jack Smallwood and the influential young woman who was once Ellie Driscoll," Mycroft mused.

"We know Baldissi went to Denmark to be a spiteful little boy and carve DIE into the forehead of the youngest Magnussen brother. To taunt, to demonstrate his power. The assumption was that it was also him who staged the attempted theft and murder.

"The question is - is that just too simple? Was there someone else behind the attempted theft? And that one threatened Guarneri would capture the imagination of another Guarneri owner? Draw that owner into the puzzle from a different direction?"

"But how can Pedder be part of all this? He and Charles were at daggers draw, had not spoken for years. He always said so, and so did Johan. It doesn't make sense," said the detective inspector.

"The only thing that stops this making sense to us is that Sherlock never told anyone else anything. Kept it all to himself. And if he hadn't - we might all be spared what we are going through tonight. Including himself," John Watson gave a brief harsh laugh. "He drugged me to keep me out of it. And then when I turned up he gave me a right smack, and in public. So I admit it - I haven't a clue."

"He ordered me to stay out of it. And keep John Watson out of it," Mycroft admitted. "He told me what he was planning so I would not interfere accidentally. That is very typical of my brother. It does not help us now."

"He told me everything," Piet Bruhl admitted. "But that was all history, past imperfect. He knew I would watch his back and be there for him. But he did not confide what he was going to be doing…"

"Sherlock sent me photographs," Catalani said. "Screen grabs from a hotel in London. My friend Maggie Driscoll, and her friend Lady Smallwood, were sent copies too .Investigators were being sent into the hotel to find more information and more CCTV. I am still waiting to hear back from them.

"When I do it may all be clearer."

"My brother is a nightmare. He will do anything to protect the people he values. Which includes all of you. And he will let himself be killed to achieve that end."

"Then we all need to concentrate, Think hard. Think harder. We already have the police, contacts, people who live and work underground - anyone and everyone - trying to spot Sherlock Holmes or Enrico Baldissi. And no-one is turning up a single thing."

Christina Ravn's voice was rough with professional frustration. She was a police officer of long experience! She should be able to work this out!

"So the answer is that Baldissi is somewhere we do not know. Somewhere we would never think to look for him. Is there anything - anything at all - any of you might have heard Sherlock say that would indicate his thinking? Reflect his thought process. Give us a pointer? Anything?"

Mycroft spoke and put his untouched bowl of pasta down on the coffee table with unusual force.

The sharp clatter made everyone jump. But there was silence within the room as everyone turned inwards, to revisit their recent memories of what Sherlock had done whilst they were with him, what he had said.

Christina Ravn, who had been reluctant to even think about the quiet intimacy of her time with Sherlock Holmes the evening before, and earlier that morning, suddenly sat up in fierce concentration and spooled back those memories.

Lean and sleepless in black tee shirt and blue plaid pyjama bottoms. Tormented by his thoughts and resistant to all help or comfort.

Stressed and hyper vigilant, leaning against the bedroom window, mind racing. Asking for touch. Asking for her to fake attraction and intimacy. To remove his tee shirt and rock into his embrace. That sudden bark of laughter…

" _Almost an entire floor next door without lights…..closed or partially closed curtains…someone watching…..enacting seduction in case there was someone watching…._

 _And if there hadn't been someone watching - how was it Baldissi had known to target her flat, the very flat they were sitting in, because he knew Sherlock was there - and turn it into a trap for Sherlock Holmes to walk into later? How could he be so close?_

 _Not just stress or imagination. Not hyper vigilance or PTSD - "PTSD for most of my life" S_ herlock had said dismissively, _'Part of who I am.'_

"What is it?" John Watson had been watching her, saw her concentration sharpen and clear. Sat up himself, alert now and too aware. "What suddenly makes sense?"

She shook her head, eyes wide with possibility. Did not dare speak.

Reached for her mobile phone. Sought the telephone number of the security teams for the Utzen Centre and the Musikkens Hus and asked the same question of both:

"There are no artists in accommodation at present due to the big opera get in. True?"

"Who is in your accommodation apartments?"

"'Don't know' is not a good enough answer."

"'No-one' is not a good enough answer."

"Go and check your key boards. And check any missing keys against your lists."

"Do it now. I'll wait."

" _But be quick!"_

All the concentration in the room focussed on her as she waited. Impatient. Walking up and down the sitting room. Pacing. Clutching her telephone and avoiding everyone's eyes. Trying not to mutter to herself or roll her eyes.

In case the men asked her what was going on. In case she was wrong. Aware of the four men focussing on her. But not asking. Not yet.

There was a brief hum of conversation then. She clutched the phone tighter and swayed on her feet.

"Room 407. Right. I will send someone over to collect the pass key…..yes….thank you."

Even before she had disconnected the call John Watson was shrugging on his dark duffel coat, putting the cap on his head and gloves on his hands. He had a palm against the door.

What am I fetching?" he asked briefly. "Where from?"

So she told him. And said again: "Be quick!"

He showed his teeth briefly in a humourless grin, gave a brisk nod and was gone.

The other three men looked at her, hope rising in their faces. But she lifted a hand for patience.

Started pressing numbers on the phone again.

And as she waited to be connected she said what she had been frightened to say before.

"Putting back up in place," she breathed. "I know where he is! And he is only yards away!"

o0o0o

Mycroft Holmes tapped the master key John Watson had brought them against his teeth, deep in thought.

"We're not doing this, Mycroft." Piet Bruhl said firmly. In a tone that brooked no argument, the military persona fully engaged.

Mycroft Holmes's small controlled movements were deep tells of concentration and power.

"Yes, we are," Three simple words, spoken even more flatly than Bruhl's."Do not make me have to remind you that I outrank you, Colonel Bruhl."

"Not here in Denmark….."

"No-o-o." The word was drawn out on a rise without tremor or stress. In the way he warned John Watson when there was a danger night coming, or a deep decision to be made. "I leave that to Mr Catalani in his pan European role. Or Detektiv Inspektor Ravn for local police input."

Eyes and wills clashed.

"John and me, with Freddie as backup. That is the most logical step, Mycroft. You are not street honed. And a long way away from field work, if you forgive me saying so?"

"Some skills one never forgets, Colonel Bruhl. It would be better for everyone if this situation ends without bloodshed. But I am not optimistic. So if blood is to be shed, it will be clear all other options failed. Diplomatic avenues rejected."

"No, Mycroft. I can't allow you to put yourself at risk like this."

Mycroft Holmes took a small step forward. Closer to the shorter, physically stronger man. The threat in his stance and his studiously blank face was implicit.

"I may be on your patch," he said in a soft yet clipped voice. "But this is my problem. My situation. My brother." He paused and let his words sink in. Christina Ravn, Alfredo Catalani and John Watson watched the power play resolve itself without comment.

But only John Watson knew how urgently, how desperately, Mycroft needed to do this.

 _I was there for you. I will be there for you again. Always._

 _Look after him for me. Please._

"I will stand you down if I have to, Colonel Bruhl. Stand you all down. Do this alone if I must."

"Girls. Please," John Watson moved closer, ducked his head, spoke with a smile in his voice. Someone had to defuse the situation, break the impasse.

For a moment he had a terrible flash of déjà vu. How often had he said this very same thing? Stepped into the breach with the voice of reason? Between Sherlock and Lestrade? Sherlock and Mycroft? Sherlock and Irene Adler? Sherlock and Donovan? Stepped in and defused strong and emotional situations? Dangerous situations that needed coolness and calm between the anger and angst that led to action and resolution?

"We are all here for the same thing," he pointed out, all plan speech and commonsense . "To get Sherlock back. So we work together on that."

The caring doctor's expression and empathy, the army captain's judgment and decisiveness. His focus.

Christina Ravn looked at the intermediary. The smallest man, the lowest ranking person in the room. The civilian. The quietest personality. The man who scrubbed saucepans. Yet now - this was man everyone was taking notice of.

Sherlock Holmes's best friend. Of course he was, She could see it now.

"Listen to me, Mycroft. Damn all gets resolved if you die too," he pulled an apologetic face, quickly amended his words. He would not admit, even to himself, that the thought had crossed his mind that Sherlock Holmes was already dead; may even have died as soon as he was spirited away from Christina Ravn's flat

"If you die. After all, what would the British government be without you? How would I explain what happened to Lady Smallwood? She might make me walk the plank or something. "

He was looking at Sherlock's older brother closely. There was a slight movement behind the eyes that in anyone else would translate as a smile, or a new openness to reason. John Watson ploughed on.

" We don't need heroics, Mycroft Not here. Not now. We just get Sherlock back. But we don't need to take unnecessary risks. If we did, he would kill us himself."

"True. But….."

"No. No buts. Here is what we are going to do. Because Colonel Bruhl is right. Up to a point.

"Baldissi has the advantage here; the perfect backstop position to defend, a weaponry we don't know, an accomplice we don't know. Sherlock as hostage and bargaining tool. Too many variables in his favour, Mycroft. So here's how we play it.

"You lead the way in; unthreatening, unarmed, cool as a cucumber. You being you. Well, not exactly unthreatening, but doing your usual impression of some goddamn upper class prig who would never get his hands dirty with a bit of action or rough stuff. Yeah?

"That gives us, Piet and me, time to see what we are dealing with. See how effective this Barbarossa kid is in support. See if Sherlock is still alive. How much of him there is left to rescue.

"You buy Piet and me some time by going in first, even if it is only three seconds, because that's enough time for us to assess the situation. More than. And then you duck. You drop like a stone, and you let us through. Right?

"Piet and me will be right behind you, ready for action. Us and our Browning and Beretta. A good team, that, if I think about it." he flashed a grin at Bruhl from beneath his brows, and Bruhl grinned back. Commitment. Agreement. Soldiers.

"Christina is out in the street keeping Joe Public out of it, organising back up, police marksmen and ambulance. Freddie on his mark downstairs with that bloody big gun of his if Baldissi and his man get past us. Mainly because if Freddie used that Storm in a flat it would blow straight through walls and take out an innocent next door neighbour.

"So if Baldissi and his cousin get out of apartment 407, with or without Sherlock, Freddie plays backstop.

"And beyond that backstop - Christina and the power of the Danish police force. If we need it. And whether or not Sherlock is already dead, we still have the drop on Baldissi. And he still ain't going nowhere. Yes?"

Mycroft Holmes drew his head back and upwards, hiding his eyes. Took a deep and audible breath and gripped the handle of the umbrella tightly.

"Thank you, John. Excellent assessment. Excellent plan." He lowered his head and looked around that tense sitting room and at the four other people who occupied it. Who all looked back at him without comment.

"So that is what we shall do, then. If we are all agreed?"

o0o0o

He stood two thirds of the way down the corridor in front of the plain blond wood door, in the apartment block next door to Christina Ravn's own with the key poised in his right hand and ready to insert into the lock.

Dr John Watson stood to the left of the door, the borrowed Beretta, small and deadly, in his right hand as if a natural extension of it. Colonel Piet Bruhl stood to the right of the door in a half crouch. The Browning so much like Sherlock Holmes' own and in regulation close order engagement hold. Double hand grip. Ready but relaxed.

They had already had the important conversation as they walked along the corridor, flanking the British government.

"I'll take the high road and right," Bruhl said tersely. "Double tap. Yes?"

"Leaving me low road and left. Double tap copy."

Behind the military argot that set the choreography of their action - Bruhl to shoot high from the right, Watson to shoot low from the left, their agreement to shoot double tap - two shots each in rapid succession - registered their mutual commitment to shoot to kill, not merely to stop.

Whether to rescue or revenge, their commitment was total, with no need to discuss. And whether Mycroft Holmes understood their words, he made no comment, nor indication that he had even heard.

"Ready?"

The men either side of him nodded. Watson held up his empty fist. Flicked out the count from five as he flung forward every finger in turn.

And when the entire hand was open and pointing forward - _GO! -_ Mycroft Holmes put the key into the lock, turned it, and silently opened the door.

"Good morning, Mr Baldwin."

The calm voice of authority. Before he even saw what was before him.

As his eyes went automatically towards the figures at the window.

Barely registered the dead man sitting sprawled against the wall to one side. Black tight denims, red sneakers, blue polo shirt with that telltale dark blossom of blood beneath the heart. Stabbed. Stabbed by Baldwin, then.

 _Because if he had been stabbed by Sherlock both the boy and Baldwin would be dead! All three of them dead…..?_

Glazed empty eyes were turned his way and still a look on the handsome young face of total surprise. Unsettling, if you chose to let it be. But now all was about the living, not the dead…..

Framed within the window itself, sitting on the window ledge: a slightly older man he recognised from photographs as Harry Baldwin. Or Enrico Baldissi - it was just a matter of choice. Or arrogance. Deluded empowerment.

 _Vengefulness. Don't forget vengefulness._

Middle height. Medium build with broad shoulders and a darkly handsome face.

Bright blue trousers of an expensive fashionable dress suit, jacket somewhere else; immaterial as to where. Blue suede shoes. A white shirt with the cuffs rolled back, once starched and elegant, but now crumpled and dirty. Blood splatter on the front of it, other unrecognisable stains he neither had time nor taste to detail.

Very Italian looking, with a strong jaw, dark complexion, too vivid eyes. For a flicker of memory they reminded Mycroft of the blazing black eyes of James Moriarty.

No time to think of that now. Just register the long, elegant antique stiletto in the young man's right hand. A right hand holding the knife against the jugular vein of his little brother as the left hand splayed and pressed down between his brother's jutting shoulder blades, holding him in place.

For one tiny and distressing lurch in time Mycroft Holmes was convinced Baldwin was playacting and the motionless Sherlock was already dead.

For his brother hung half in, half out of the open window. Almost at the point of balance. At first sight he looked boneless, soulless, emptied. Then Mycroft noticed that those long bony toes were braced backwards on the floor as if on tiptoe, all the muscles in his legs and back clenched into immobility.

The blood rushed loudly in his ears. His brother was naked. Sweat and dried blood from a series of shallow cuts on his body gave a strange and unsettling sheen to his skin, and Mycroft realised his hands were tied before him; tied with a thick silken rope with an incongruous tassle; a tieback from the plain pale green curtains that framed the two men in the window. His shoulders were hunched in, arms trapped painfully between the wall and his body.

The fingers twitched. He moved his head, an awkward and painful little shift.

"Vatican cameos," he breathed out quietly. Eyes shifted towards Mycroft, but with nothing to read in them.

Mycroft swallowed the shock but could not stop the slight smile. Sherlock was still in there, however distantly.

"Do unhand my brother, Mr Baldwin. You both look ridiculous."

"Oh, God, just listen to you. Another poncey posh boy. Do you come off some production line?"

"Yes," Mycroft replied. He gathered all the irritating arrogance he could muster to distract and annoy, but stood very still as he watched the point of the knife blade press and whiten the tender skin at his brother's already alabaster throat. Watched the Adam's apple sink and rise again in reflex.

And then he saw the handgun resting on the window sill between the two men and his heart stopped beating. "A superior one," he said with flat defiance. "Naturally."

Harry Baldwin's face contorted. He spat at him. Mycroft watched unmoved and unmoving as the ball of spittle fell short.

"That didn't work, did it? Clearly you didn't win any cherry stone spitting or pissing up the wall contests with the other little boys. So time you gave up, I think. Don't you?"

"You must be fucking joking!" The knife point jerked. Sherlock did not move. Mycroft could not tell if it was self control or borderline insensibility.

"I've got the upper hand. Because I've got Sherlock. It's been fun playing with him, but I'm bored now. So in a minute I'll send him to join Charles in hell, and see what Magnussen does with him there."

The left hand pressed down and forwards. Sherlock rocked and dipped, half in, half out, and remained silent. Immobile. Limp and all but lifeless.

"You won't," Mycroft said smoothly, with more confidence than he felt. "Because I'm not going to let you do that. You're not killing him. You pathetic little prick."

The answer was swift, without words. Attack with the advantage of surprise. The stiletto flashed through the air towards him from a professional underarm throw, a fast low scooping action that should have taken him down.

But he was ready. He had been ready for anything.. Legwork might bore him, but that did not mean he did not appreciate or understand it. Or could not do it.

The umbrella in his right hand lifted, almost lazily. The shaft rose in front of Mycroft's face to protect him and block the throw, pushed that bright stiletto from it's target, skittering it away to the side, and to clatter loudly on the floor.

And in an extension of the same move, the umbrella swept down and out at lightning speed. But was something different now. The shaft swapped swiftly into the left hand, but in the right hand there was now a sword. The business end of his sword stick.

Enrico Baldissi, inhabiting Harry Baldwin, narrowed his eyes as he saw a new shining blade that was not his come into play. And he twisted slightly to snatch up the pistol on the windowsill.

"Now!" Mycroft shouted then, facing death for the second time within seconds. Made his decision in the instant, throwing the sword stick without hesitation at Harry Baldwin. To kill or to damage, or to distract; any result would do. And, in follow through, dropping like a stone, flat to the floor.

After that, everything happened fast and in slow motion.

Harry Baldwin reached for his gun with murder in his eyes and found it. Sherlock Holmes felt the movement, the slight relaxation of pressure on his back as the body weight above him shifted. Arched up a little, freed his hands. Dropped back and down, twisting….

John Watson and Piet Bruhl surged through the doorway. Bruhl high, Watson low, leading into the room with their guns before them and raised for action.

Assessed as one, fired as one, stepping round and over the man frozen to the ground, safely out of their way.

Stereo surround sound filled the room; two pistols coughing twice sharply in concert. Watson, aiming for guaranteed centre mass stoppers. Bruhl for the riskier killer head shots.

In that same instant Sherlock Holmes slithered fast to the ground, landed on his knees. Snatched Enrico Baldissi by the ankles, shifted his grasp to the feet and scrabbled round. Pushed upwards from the heels, levering his body straight from the ground like a weightlifter to provide fast explosive impetus. Heave, lift, straighten up, lock out. Just physics.

He grunted with animal effort, as if that was the final effort left within him. The last, despairing gasp.

All actions combined in a whole. Enrico Baldissi - gun in hand now - jerked backwards, bounced off the inside corner of the window frame. Fell forward, arms rearing upwards, body hard against the glass of the opened window. And through it.

Bruhl and Watson did not pause to register the result of their action, but ran forward, guns held high and neutral now, away from their bodies. Still in action mode, still intent.

After what seemed far too long a time, a time of strange breathless silence, there came the unmistakable sound of impact, of something landing. Something heavy, and wet sounding, and final, down on the concrete below.

Mycroft Holmes heard heavy footsteps, then Alfredo Catalani calling upwards.

"Put up your guns, gentlemen. Target achieved."

Heard the two men either side and in front of him let out long breaths of tension released. Heard the satisfying and reassuring sound of metal snicking back into sprung leather holster and jacket pocket.

All in the periphery of his awareness. Because all his consciousness, all his concentration, was on Sherlock Holmes.

Normally Mycroft Holmes would never dream of crawling anywhere. Far beneath his dignity. But now he leopard crawled fast and inelegantly across the room to his brother's side.

By the time he reached him, Sherlock was back up and standing, turned towards the open window. Poised. A Roman statue almost, naked and gleaming under the sheen of blood and sweat, arms raised with the sword stick pulled back like a javelin thrower, arms locked out and ready to throw and to kill. Despite the incongruous curtain tie still holding his wrists together.

Mycroft Holmes surged to his feet and filled the space between his brother and the window and looked into sea storm grey eyes empty of humanity and awareness, firing hard and bright but with nothing fuelling them but the final impetus for survival.

"Sherlock. Stop. It's over."

There was no-one inside the shell of his brother to hear him or see him at that moment.

"Tell me he's dead. Tell me I've won."

The voice was unrecognisable, a parched, driven rasp.

Bruhl and Watson turned their attention from peering down at the satisfying stillness of the haphazardly tossed body on the ground below, of Catalani checking for absence of life before lifting his gun away from it's focus, replacing the Storm in it's holster and giving them a thumbs-up sign. Despite the distance his teeth showed in the fiercely satisfied grin of the predator.

On the periphery of vision a blur of movement that was Christina Ravn closing in on them. He ignored it.

"Sherlock."

Mycroft Holmes repeated the name.

"Is he dead? Tell me! " A whispered frustrated demand.

"Yes, he's dead. Calm down. We got him."

John Watson, a frown on his face now, turned away from the sight outside and stepped forward to reach for his friend. But Mycroft raised one hand to keep him back. Barely looked in his direction.

"No, Dr Watson. Not this time. Me. My brother," he said.

He stepped closer and put one hand on the rigid arm closest to him and still holding his sword stick raised and ready to throw. Forced the arm downwards. Still tied to it, the other arm, and then the sword stick, followed.

"It's over, Sherlock. Let go of grandpere's sword stick." He took hold, with effort, the cane handle that looked well on an umbrella, but strange upon a sword, and prised it carefully out of the rigid hand to toss the secret weapon aside.

It had done it's job for the first time in years. And now rattled down onto the floor alongside the misericorda.

"William. It's over," he repeated. "Come back now. Come back for me."

His voice was very, very soft. A tone no-one who knew him would recognise. "Please, William. I'm here now. I'm always here for you."

He did something he never did, and which did not come easily to him. Human contact. He lifted a hand and rested it on his brother's cold, rigid left shoulder. Let his hand run down the tense arm. Saw goosebumps and dried blood, cuts, bruises, sweat and tension. Rubbed lightly, to generate a little physical warmth.

Sherlock Holmes turned his head slightly, round and down. Looked at the hand on his arm.

Mycroft Holmes pushed the cold arm across the cold and bloodied body, drew his brother's hands gently together. Bent his head to avoid looking into that hard and distant face, to concentrate on unpicking the knots of plaited satin cord holding those wrists together.

Both heads bent close together as one pair of long strong fingers worked on the knots while such similar hands waited for release. Curled and passive now.

"You're OK, Your wrists are OK." Mycroft breathed the words with difficulty, unused to giving reassurance. "But what has that odious man done to you, brother mine?" The voice, usually so arch, was barely above a whisper, and badly broken.

There was no reply.

"You did it, Sherlock. You said you would, and you did. You got Baldwin. Flushed him out of hiding. Got him before he took down anyone else."

Something flickered behind the eyes of the captive.

"I said. Told you I would win." The words, rusty and raw, stopped abruptly.

Mycroft Holmes dropped the curtain tie onto the ground and grasped his brother by the biceps as he wobbled.

The patrician head fell forward. A long shuddering intake of breath. The head rose again. Eyes finally looking at him squarely. Focussed. But somehow not right.

"Myc? What are you doing here?"

"Here to rescue you," he said plainly. Then took a risk. "Finally here. How could you not expect me to come for you, child?"

There was a moment of total silence. Watson and Bruhl froze. And Christina Ravn, almost running into the room, had stumbled to a halt. Captivated by what she saw and had not dared to expect. Sherlock Holmes. Alive and on his feet.

With his wrists finally freed Sherlock Holmes's hands quickly lifted for the heels of the hands to support his temples in an achingly familiar gesture of stress and concentration.

Head bent, face hidden, he staggered back a step.

"No. This is not you. Never there when needed. Never have been. Mustn't expect…" he nodded to himself. "Drugs. Too many drugs. In a long, long night. Hallucinating. Clearly. So. Not. You."

Another lumbering step back. John Watson came silently forward to stop him in case he backed further and stumbled over the sprawled legs of what had been Joel Barbarossa. Lifted his own hands to ghost around his friend's outline. Just in case.

His eyes met those of Mycroft Holmes over Sherlock Holmes' shoulder. He hoped what he saw there was not reflected in his own face.

"It is me, Sherlock." He leant in closer, gave his brother a tiny shake. "I'm really here for you. You did it. I did it. We did it." Another little shake.

 _Bring you back, little by little. Otherwise your loss breaks my heart….._

"Why ever would you invent me being here, when you have friends with you?" The voice was coming back to itself. "All here for you.: John, Piet, Christina….." Mycroft spoke in his usual tone of high disdain. It sounded desperately manufactured.

And still carefully watched his brother - who would normally riposte with a jibe or a look of total disdain - shake his head, inch away, looking towards him, yet still not meeting his eyes.

"How would you know? This is not you. You're just something in my head. Wishful thinking. Yeah, that's it. Figment of my imagination. You're dead. They told me….."

"Who told you that?"

"They did, of course. You are dead. Everyone dead. Pops, Isabel. Mummy and Fiona. Robin and the kids. Everyone. And it was all my fault. So only me left. To take the blame. Be punished."

"No-one is going to punish you. ….."

"Bandits. Moriarty. Magnussen. Baldwin. Baldissi. Yes. Punish."

Mycroft Holmes reached up and took his brothers hands and forced them down. Peered deep into the face that was so familiar, but now so very alien.

"Sherlock. Look at me. Listen to me. I am talking to you, brother. Talking to Sherlock. Not William any more. Sherlock. William no longer exists. William did what he had to do and then had to walk away from it all. All the horribleness. Remember? His pain no longer exists. Think."

He took a deep breath. For a moment his eyes met those of John Watson again. He hoped his face did not share the doctor's anguish. But he knew it did..

"I wasn't there when everything happened back then," he said gently. Voice persuasive, infinitely reasonable. "I was on my way to you. Travelling from Washington. So I couldn't be dead, could I? So I'm not dead now, am I? Think. You think better than anyone. You're just fuddled. Drugs and pain and a long night without sleep."

"Drugs. Yes. Oh! But I didn't do your list, though, did I, Myc? I'm sorry. I promised I always would."

He raised his hands and cupped them around his older brother's face. Worked his fingers around the bones, as if testing their reality, their identity. The eyes burnt.

"Mycroft? Oh. Hello. Finally. Your list. GHB, ketamine, xanax, I think. There was angel dust. Not heroin. Not cocaine. They all affect the memory, you see, so…..I'll get Molly to test me. Done it before. Tomorrow…"

"Stop, Sherlock. It doesn't matter."

"It matters, I promised. I vowed. I am a horrible person, responsible for everyone being killed, but I don't go back on a vow, Mycroft. To you or John or Pops, or….! He leant his forehead against his brother's in something like despair, and it was all Mycroft Holmes could do to stop himself sobbing. "Jack Smallwood. I promised Elizabeth, I promised. And I didn't….." he stopped whatever he had been going to say with a visible effort. "make you a list.".

"That's all right. Don't worry about it."

"But I do. I never do anything right, do I? Always get something wrong. Forget something. A list. Should add morphine to it. Morphine is good." He sagged suddenly and woud have fallen if Christina Ravn had not stepped forward to drape the Belstaff she had found, folded on a chair, around his shoulders. "I could do with some now, actually…."

She held him up by the elbows from behind, arms half round him automatically, gave Mycroft Holmes a severe look and said simply:

"Enough, now."

"No! Don't stop him! Keep him talking! I must know - understand - what he's saying. About what hap ….."

"No, Mycroft." Christina Ravn dipped to fold her arms around the consulting detective more securely, take his weight and close the coat around his nakedness, the pale and punished skin.

"He's naked and he's cold and he is hurting. He's in shock and he needs looking after. So look after him."

"He doesn't accept help from me. I…we…." he reversed two paces with swift decision. "You have a Crime Scene Investigation team to move in here? Remove the bodies? Right now? Keep this silent and secret? Debrief everyone at the highest level? Yes. Good."

He bent and picked up the two halves of the sword stick, put them back together with a twist and a click and noted dispassionately his hands were shaking.

 _Time to remove, then._

Grasped his civil servant's umbrella and stepped away.

"Thank you for your timely and expert assistance in this matter, gentlemen. Your discretion now would be much appreciated. And thank you, Detektive Inspektor. For facilitating all this. " He looked at John Watson, made a dismissive gesture with his left hand.

"Over to you now, Dr Watson. Please take care of him for me."

He gave a curt nod, started to walk out of the door.

"Mycroft!" John Watson was there before him. Barring the way. Looking angrier and sadder than the British Government had ever seen him.

"I am sorry, John. I have learnt more than I expected in the past few minutes. Need to process. But first I must go and put various protocols in place to deal with all this. Close it down, push things forward. Officially, you understand. Formalities need attending to."

"Your brother…"

A nod. That thin lipped civil servant's smile.

"He won't let you take him to hospital. He may, however, allow you to return him to Christina's. Tend to him there. He isn't dying. But note what he tells you. Now. If you will excuse me?"

Head back, his studied gaze swept the room but did not linger on the body in the Belstaff coat.

And then he was gone.

Unable to punch Mycroft on the nose, John Watson punched the wall instead.

"People deal with distress in different ways, John," Piet Bruhl said softly.

"Myc's gone?" Sherlock Holmes raised his head. He had missed something in his weakness.

Finally he sounded like himself, if a muted version.

"Oh, yeah. Gone. Just when you need him," John Watson said, voice scathing. But his friend shook his head.

"No. He knew I ….couldn't….not with him here. But d'you see?" He lifted his head and his eyes smiled into John Watson's eyes. "He was here. For me." He swallowed hard. "He came. He really did."

The sound of wonder in the voice, the smile on the drawn ravaged face, were without guile. And it was as if the real Sherlock Holmes had just walked back into the room. No longer a hollow thing lost in the past, but himself again.

Moved, Christina Ravn put a hand to his face and tucked his head under her chin, trying to enfold him with her compassion. But he pushed away from that, eyes flying round the room.

"Ha! " He exclaimed suddenly. "Ah!"

He lurched painfully to one side and out of both her arms and his coat, almost fell into the sofa three steps away. Came up brandishing a cheap mobile phone. Face glorious.

"See? Burn phone. See and observe."

Adrenaline had him back on his feet, despite the grimace and groan of pain. Head down, thumbs flying across the buttons.

"Just one number in contacts," he said. "'The Main Man' Oooh."

He looked up, deep in thought, miles away. Unaware of his surroundings. His nakedness. The pain.

They watched his face transform, that delighted smile fade as the hard Sherlock Holmes mask shuttered down in thought. He bent over the phone, concentrating. Typing. Sending.

"Sherlock, what are you up to?" John Watson demanded. Was ignored. "Sherlock, you're not fit for anything now, don't start…"

"Shut up. I know what I'm doing. Damage to the transport doesn't matter. Worth it for this. Baldissi's dead. Everyone safe _,_ Told you. I do anything to win. So I did. This" - he brandished the phone, and the grin was back - "this is my bonus ball."

"What have you done, you mad sod?"

"I….."

He moved instinctively towards John Watson but pain and exhaustion suddenly swept over him like a tsunami and took him down. Knees buckled and gave way and he started to go down, but Piet Bruhl stepped forward and broke his fall.

"Piet? Hello." he struggled to push back up to his feet, clutched the soldier's arm. "Still got your superglue? I need it. Put Humpty Dumpty back together again….."

He looked up, phone clenched in hand, but suddenly, finally, overwhelmed by the damage he had accrued.

"John." he said flatly "Thirsty. Hurt. Everywhere. Want to cry. Why do I want to cry…..?"

"Because you had a bad night, you tosser. So do it. I won't tell anyone."

Sherlock Holmes laughed then. Dragged up a carefree, amused laugh so incongruous when so wrecked and naked and bloodied, that John Watson flinched.

"I can't do that," he said simply. "Won't."

Instead he turned back into Christina Ravn's arms, and sank down into the familiar warmth of the coat she held open for him. She folded it around him and felt him shudder in reaction to the warmth and support, tightened her arms around him instinctively. Felt unmistakeable small shocks start coming from him, rocking into her.

Small dry silent sobs without the comfort of tears.

"It's OK, Sherlock. It's all over now."

John Watson patted him on the shoulder, tugged the coat tighter around the torn body. Looked into those familiar silver eyes and saw tears of stress and pain shine towards overflowing, be ignored with a disdainful sniff. A boring and purely physical reaction.

"No, John. It's far from over. In fact it's just beginning."

TO BE CONTINUED….

 **Author's notes:**

Apart from the existence of the two Guarneri violins featured in this chapter, all the other Guarnei violin history is true.

Double tap: Method of firing at a target, two bullets released as closely as possible,

to ensure maximum effect (death) from the action of tapping the trigger twice to hit the target placement twice. Practise now in general use but first established by the UK's Special Operations Executive in WW2.

Mycroft's swordstick: The Criminal Justice Act Offensive Weapons Order (1988) made it illegal to buy and sell swordsticks. Trade in antique swordsticks over 100 years old is allowed, but the carrying of such in public, as they are classed as offensive weapons, is itself illegal. The law is somewhat woolly here, as both definition and legality focuses upon the intent of the carrier.

One famous regular carrier of a swordstick in the C20th was trailblazing BBC drama producer and crime writer Val Gielgud (brother of actor Sir John) Who also starred in the film version of his book - with Holt Marvell - _Murder At Broadcasting House (1934)_ Great film, great book. Recommended.

In _Things We Lost In The Flames_ Piet Bruhl treats and seals a cut on Sherlock with superglue.


	16. Chapter 16

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 16

 _Heaven knows, we should never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried than before - more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle._

 _(Charles Dickens. Great Expectations)_

"Give me the phone, Sherlock. Give me the phone and tell me what you've just done."

John Watson stood close and loomed over Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes slid his eyes down and away, hunched inwards and tightened his hold on the cheap mobile phone.

The huddle of the policewoman, the doctor and the consulting detective switched suddenly from sympathy and support to angst and anger.

"Fuck off, John."

"Tell me what you mean - about it just beginning. For God's sake, Sherlock! Your brother told me to look after you. And I'm trying to. But you are not helping."

"Boring. Leave me alone. Or get me a drink of water. We'll see then if those trackers really do work."

Alfredo Catalani, watching with a fierce and barely concealed concentration, laughed. It was the laughter of tragedy. To him the naked man in front of them looked as if he had already died. As if the weight of pain and drugs could no longer be borne by those slim shoulders.

And despite the coat and the arms surrounding him, Sherlock Holmes had never seemed more naked or more alone.

"More important, we need to get you out of here. You should be in hospital," he suggested quietly. Knowing what the answer would be.

"No! Absolutely not!" The head came up, and eyes met. The eyes of the suffering man were undefeated, hard and artic. The will forcing discipline upon the failing body. Catalani stepped back a little in the face of it. "I am dead, Can't been seen in public. Obviously."

"What have you done?"

Again, he lifted a hand to bat away John Watson's question.

"I have done what I am doing. Don't nag."

He shifted uncomfortably within Christina Ravn's arms.

"Clothes?" he queried, looking round. Mentally shifting a gear. Ignoring his damage, addressing his nudity. "Better get dressed…. Things to do."

He started to move from the circle of arms around him, but that turned out to be a move too far, and with a bitten-off groan that was as much surprise as anger, without her support his legs would not hold him, and he folded down onto the floor. Down onto his hands and knees, face bouncing off the carpet.

"No,no,noo. Bloody transport. Mustn't fail me now…..not now."

His words dribbled into silence.

At this point of anticlimax after action, the other people in the room waited and watched him shake his head like a dog and waver. Head down, he laboured across the floor. They stepped back to give him room as he crawled towards Barbarossa. Sat up a little, flinched and slumped to one side. Brought up a hand to check the pulse at the throat, make sure for himself that the boy was indeed dead.

"Sorry, young man," he whispered. "Should have been me. Not you. Oblivion. Oh, Christ….." He swallowed hard and the outstretched hand at the throat moved upwards to draw the eyelids down over the dead eyes, already glazing white.

"Get me out of this charnel house," he said into the floor as his hand dropped, voice as deep and emotionless as John Watson had ever heard it. "Get forensics in. Have this all recorded and cleared away, Christina. Leave no trace of it. The music house will need this accommodation next week for when the opera begins….."

She hunkered down beside him.

"Did you kill him?"

"This him? Or the other him? Think that one was a cooperative effort…." A twisted grin.

"Sherlock!"

"Do I look capable to…even…lift a finger?"

"I'm so sorry. I had to ask."

"I know. It was Baldwin." Words came out in laboured puffs of breath.." He killed his cousin. Because he was. Enjoying. Hurting me. Too much."

She put a hand to his face in wordless sympathy, but he wrenched his head away so quickly he almost hit ground again.

"No hospital, then. Back to my apartment, yes?" she suggested, voice soft and gentle. "Can you walk? Get dressed?"

"Of course!" he huffed. But when he braced his arms to lift himself from the ground they shook, collapsed under him, and he was back down on his face.

"No…the transport….bugger…won't ...bugger…Oh!"

Piet Bruhl stepped forward, put his hands out and lifted Sherlock Holmes up from behind by his naked hips. The body rose and folded forward, and the soldier curved a hand onto the hollow chest, pushed back into it, stood the body erect and simply held it there while Christina Ravn carefully posted limp arms through the sleeves and buttoned the coat up, like dressing a small child or a rag doll.

"It's just a few hundred yards: I'll carry him. Down the emergency stairs here and up the emergency stairs there. Yes? Can you bring his clothes, John?"

John Watson nodded, and as he moved forward to gather up the garments strewn around the plain and sterile courtesy flat, he flashed out a hand to take the cheap mobile phone from Sherlock Holmes' hand.

The consulting detective snatched it away, faster and more alert than his friend had ever anticipated, and clutched a firm hold on the phone.

"No! I told you!" A flash of grey eyes.

"Stop it!" Piet Bruhl snapped out the order without heat, put one hand behind the back of the Belstaff, stooped to hook the other arm behind the legs and scoop up the bent frail body. The legs were long and dangled close to the ground, the naked feet and ankles poking out below the coat hem looking desperately vulnerable.

Bruhl walked slowly and purposefully from the room of death and action.

"Lean against me, Sherlock. Makes carrying you easier."

"Don't need…"

"Yes, you do. Humour me."

"Freddie? Come too. Work to do." The voice managed it's usual imperious tone.

"You need medical treatment. Sleep." Said the agent neutrally.

"Time for that later. This is just…." he had one arm braced against the doorframe, halting Piet Bruhl in his progress. Lifted his head. "…just physical damage. Calculated. Bit more spiteful and childish than I'd anticipated, wanting to mark his territory But - you know - it means I've got what you want."

"You're mad."

"Aware."

Hs head fell back, he let go of the doorframe and finally let his face press against Piet Bruhl's jacket. The _Jaegerkorps_ colonel tightened his arms and stepped into the corridor.

John Watson gathered up the tumbled and disgarded clothes and hurried after them. Alfredo Catalani joined him, and Christina Ravn nodded to them all as they passed her, morphing effortlessly from caring friend into senior police officer on duty. She gave John Watson the key to her home.

"Look after him, John."

"Trying," he said grimly. "Always trying."

o0o0o

The smell of peppermint bath lotion, the bubbles and the pastel green water of the bath seemed like some bizarre hallucination. The smell especially was overpowering. It seemed he had slugged half a bottle of bath essence into the hot water as Piet Bruhl lowered Sherlock Holmes gently down like a baby to sit safe and secure on a folded towel as the water rose around him.

John Watson registered the stuttering breaths and the gasps as hot water reached and soothed and cleansed the various cuts and abrasions on the body; the knife marks and the bites on the thighs and genitals, the slashes on the ribs, the cigarette burns.

He hunted through the bathroom cabinets until he found the first aid box then the bottle of antiseptic, and tipped in the contents until it was empty. The generic smell of medical cleanliness overtook the peppermint. The water turned from green to milky white and the bubbles popped and died .

Sherlock Holmes sat in the hot water. Knees raised, and arms wrapped tautly round them. He stared blankly at the bath taps.

"Fetch Mycroft," the voice was still masterful, but muted now." And Freddie. I need to debrief them."

"Later. When you are clean and I have done something about your damage. When you have slept."

"No, John. Now. Before I forget anything. They need facts…..right now."

It was a sign of exhaustion and control ebbing away that the voice rose to an almost hysterical note

"Calm down! I'll get them."

He took a bath towel and draped it softly around Sherlock's slim shoulders. For dignity to cover the nakedness. For warmth, to try and stop the intermittent shaking that made him clench his teeth and suck in hard breaths; the aftershocks of shock.

As he drew away, one hand caught his wrist.

"Thank you, John. For coming here regardless. For being my doctor." The voice was quiet, but the tone unreadable.

Startled and stopped, John Watson looked down. His friend was not looking at him.

"That's what I do."

"Yes. But you don't have to any more. You can go home now. It's over. Baldwin is dead. You and Mary are safe."

"Thanks to you." An automatic and effortless reply. But Sherlock Holmes still did not look up at him Just lifted a shoulder dismissively

"I'm not going home without you. You shouldn't expect me to." John Watson added, then paused. "And if it's over for me, it's over for you, too."

"Not yet. No. But that's not your problem."

"Tell me what you mean."

John Watson was finding it difficult breathing. From action and result and relief to this unexpected shock. And the lost and haunted, shuttered look on his friend's face.

"Not your problem. Please don't push me on this. Please."

And because Sherlock Holmes rarely said please, John Watson did as he was asked. For the time being.

o0o0o

The scene was surreal. A formal debriefing in a bathroom. The witness giving evidence hunched inside steam and sensibility and a white ceramic bath. Mycroft Holmes sitting on the floor, back against the tiled wall and long legs stretched in front of him, crossed at their elegant ankles. Laptop across his knees and typing verbatim at Hansard speed and accuracy.

Alfredo Catalani perched on a corner of the bath by Sherlock Holmes' head, recording the slow hesitant words on his phone. Piet Bruhl sitting on the floor at the tap end. Periodically pulling the plug and letting out cooled water while adding fresh hot from the taps.

John Watson stood impassively in the open doorway. Silent, watchful, troubled.

Pale and damaged, skin stretched over bones, Sherlock Holmes had permitted his doctor to soap off the dried blood and sweat, the wine, the ejaculate, the cigarette ash and God alone knew what else that clung and had been stuck to the abused skin.

The patient had sat in the bath and shook, head down on his knees, trying to ignore the pain and the reaction and the shame of it all, to ignore the gentle hands and flannel soothing his body. Traumatised, if anyone had dared speak or even think the word.

He had refused painkillers.

"Not yet. Pain helps me concentrate. I cannot have anything softened. Need everything to stay sharp in my mind, to remember. Later, perhaps."

He refused rape tests, swabs for sexually transmitted diseases.

"I know who raped me, so tests are pointless. And Baldwin didn't give me any little gift last time; so I doubt he would now. I don't think the boy had ever done it before. Which was why he was repulsed so quickly. And why he died.

"But if you're still worried, I'll get Molly to test me when I get back home. Won't be the first time."

"Sherlock!" Finally John Watson could not maintain his silence. And finally his friend tilted his head and looked at him sideways.

"I've always told you I'm not a hero," he offered quietly.

"This time…this assault….how could you offer yourself up for that? For this?"

A small and bitter laugh. Hands tightened spasmodically.

"Had to act quickly. Baldwin - Baldissi - was angry and obsessed. Clearly no brakes. Enjoyed dominating and playing with pain. Happy to damage innocent people before getting to me. Remember the graffiti on the wall of Baker Street? That it would be too easy for him to kill me first? So I had to change his mind.

"Break his plan. Tempt and tantalise. Make him believe I had been weakened by killing Magnussen, destroyed by my time in solitary confinement. Had to appear beaten down, fatalistic, damaged. Open and ready to be damaged more. Ready for death. Had to let him see he could hurt me. Make hurting me irresistible.

"Had to be quick. Push him over the edge, focus on just me. While the whole thing was just getting bigger…..I didn't have a choice. My plan. My pain. My problem."

"What do you mean? Pain?"

That familiar blank and glittering look.

"Get Mycroft and Freddie."

So he did. For the sooner this was over the better. The sooner Sherlock Holmes could be treated for his pain and begin to heal.

Piet Bruhl had put Sherlock Holmes down onto Christina Ravn's plush dark sofa and stood and looked down at the wreckage.

"You should be in hospital. Let us at least call you a doctor."

"I have a doctor."

"Who has no authority over here. Cannot write you a script. Because God knows what you need to get you through this. Antibiotics, pain killers, sedatives….."

"Stop mothering me, Piet. I'm fine. Codeine, superglue and a few hours sleep…"

"A few hours sleep? That's all? What are you planning next?"

"To do what I have to. Don't fuss."

He heaved himself forward. Clutched the cushions like a drowning man at a life raft.

"I….need a bath. Can't stand the smell or the feel of dried blood and body fluids on me any longer. Then I talk. Mycroft and Freddie can start wheels moving."

For a moment Bruhl looked down and the others - even Mycroft Holmes, who had been sitting at Christina Ravn's dining table, typing emails furiously - watched a myriad of reactions cross his face.

"You are not fit to be out and doing. Not yet. Not today."

"Today. This evening. I have an appointment. Nothing to do with you or John. Mycroft and Freddie….." the voice trailed away. "I need a bath."

Bruhl made a decision, gave a quick nod.

"Matti will take your clothes to an express cleaner. You have something to wear in the meantime? "

"Pyjamas."

"You need other clothes? I think my husband's will fit you….."

"Fredrik is a little long in the leg, I suspect. My own clothes refreshed will be perfect."

He started to rise, but it was clear he wasn't going to make it. Bruhl made a noise in the back of his throat, leant forward to unbutton the Belstaff, and peel it away so it lay on the sofa around it's owner, looking strangely like sloughed skin.

Again he lifted his slight burden, and John Watson stepped forward to open the bathroom door for them.

He exchanged a look with Sherlock's older brother. Whose lips tightened, and who shook his head. But for once said nothing.

o0o0o

"Just listen to me. Don't interrupt my train of thought. Any questions at the end. Clear?"

The man in the bath took a deep breath and began.

"Baldwin was a boaster. He liked to talk. But mainly to say how wonderful he was.

"He took me down here, in Christina's flat. When I woke up in the service flat across the road, the first thing he told me was that he was very clever; and he had done this before. Starting off in Mexico with a dealer called Pablo Jones in Mexico City. Should be a lead for you there, Freddie.

"After Maggie Driscoll turned him down for a job with Magenta Rose, he took against the British government. Made crime his personal vendetta He started off by setting himself up as some sort of sexual adventurer. And met the Ghanian, Simeon Kosi Kwame, at the Dirigo Gentleman's Club in London.

They both loved operating the Romeo Fraud, of which Kwame was a leading example. He mentored and encouraged Baldwin. Then introduced him to Magnussen. Who was also a member of the club.

"I know Maggie has had her doubts about the function of that place for sometime. Harry inferred the owners know much more than they admit. Wheels within wheels, Mycroft. Grounds for serious investigation.

"So then Baldwin told me - in between drug hits and …. and only my business what else … much of his shoddy little story. As if once started, he couldn't stop. Wanted to impress me, and his little cousin.

His successes, his scams, his highlights, his boasts. There was a huge expose of an Army colonel in Natal who refused to cooperate with blackmail plans despite a long questionable sexual history with minors. His name was Paradine. You can check and backtrack all this, Freddie.

"Cases revived, old newspaper blackmail schemes regenerated. Sex and drugs and rock and roll indeed. All coming back to Magnusseen's newspaper exposes, blackmail, and on to the human trafficking. Some names Harry mentioned….." he reeled off several.

John Watson felt his concentration slipping. This was not something he could help with. This was for the British government, for Catalani's human trafficking office. For legwork and paperwork and forensic bureaucracy to take over. To bring expose and justice. To take it all beyond the range of the naked man shivering in a peppermint scented bath who had started everything on the road to justice.

But as he relaxed and zoned out of the monologue, something snagged in his memory. And he finally realised what it was. The mobile telephone. The text messages Sherlock Holmes had read, and the message he had sent.

And then he had asked. Had demanded the phone. Sherlock Holmes had refused him and turned away.

But Sherlock Holmes wasn't holding the phone now, the phone he had held in a death grip earlier. When had he put the phone down? Where? Had they all just forgotten about it? Or had Sherlock hidden it?

How could he have managed that? When so weak and damaged and surrounded by his friends and rescuers? When being held by Bruhl?

And it wasn't there in the bathroom with them…..

Slowly he stepped softly backwards. So no-one would notice him moving, leaving the bathroom as the quiet hesitant voice continued it's catalogue of villainy.

Four steps clear of the doorway he relaxed, and began to quietly but thoroughly search Christina Ravn's sitting room; the only room Sherlock had been in since his return. The only place the telephone could be.

He lifted the upholstery on the sofa where Sherlock Holmes had sat as much as he could, ran his hands down and around the seams. Looked underneath, Flung up the loose cushions. Nothing! Where could the phone be?

Not within the heap of clothes, nor under any furniture. Not on the bookcase.

He turned again to the sofa, and pummelled the loose cushions. Picked up two and bashed them together in frustration. Then finally realise that one cushion was slightly heavier; a retro cushion of blue and orange Orla Keily design.

He squeezed the cushion between his fists. Felt a hard lump inside it. Inside! Sherlock had performed sleight of hand to tuck the burn phone inside the cushion cover at the back.

So it would not be seen, or found accidentally. He did not want anyone to see. Wanted, again and as always, to do everything all on his own.

John Watson pulled the phone out of the cotton casing. Pressed the button to switch it on. Clicked on the inbox. Followed the thread.

Just one single thread of an exchange between Harry Baldwin - who was also Enrico Baldissi - and The Main Man.

He read the simple but telling exchange. And his blood chilled.

 _Got him! It was easy._

 **Tell me what happens.**

What do you think happens? Fun!

 **Kill him when you have had your fun.**

 _Later. Patience. You can have the body for breakfast._

 **I should hope so.**

 _Later. Will let you know._

John Watson looked up and remembered to breathe. Clicked onto the next message, several hours later. Sherlock's messages. And their reply.

 _It's done. Was fun. He had an argument with the pavement. Killed himself, apparently._

 _ **Excellent.**_

 _You bet! Bit tired now. See you this evening to tell all about it. At the music house. After the violin thing._

He read it three - four - times. It still read the same.

"Sherlock Holmes, you bloody nutter! What have you done?"

He resisted the temptation to throw the mobile phone at the wall, and waited for the tremors of anger to pass though him.

And only then did he cross to the bathroom to see what was happening in there.

Sherlock Holmes was right. As usual. This was not over. Not yet.

o0o0o

The argument about the telephone had taken place after Mycroft and Catalani had obtained all the names and leads they needed, and had taken themselves off to separate corners of the sitting room to report back to their offices and get legal wheels moving. Moving fast to investigate and to capture.

To tidy officialdom after the deaths of Barbarossa and Harry Baldwin. To close in on the Charlemagne Level and the many names and connections Sherlock Holmes had provided from Harry Baldwin's boastfulness.

To do their jobs at the highest level, leaving John Watson and Piet Bruhl to pick up the pieces. Of the situation and of Sherlock Holmes.

Who was propped against the edge of the bath with two bath towels around him when John Watson reached the bathroom. He ignored the state of the body in front of him. Because he had seen it all before, hadn't he?

Damage to the point of destruction, The transport secondary to the intellect. But now parts of him, very private parts of Sherlock Holmes, were in too much pain to sit properly. Evidence of assault. A thought that turned John Watson's stomach.

All the grief and the drama, and the blatant, pig headed refusal to learn or be touched by it. As ever.

At that moment all John Watson could feel was anger and a bleak despair; of Sherlock yet again acting without sharing, keeping secrets while keeping help at bay. Suffering for it. As if he expected or anticipated nothing else.

"Just look at you. The punishment you have taken. Determined to do it all alone, not let anyone help."

The anger in his voice was impossible to disguise, and Sherlock Holmes and Piet Bruhl lifted their heads to look at him.

"You never learn a thing, do you? You just keep on going, regardless. And you've just done it again, you total arse." He held up the mobile phone.

"You wouldn't show me what you had done, tell me what you were doing. You wouldn't let me see the phone! Well! I found it where you hid it, Sherlock! I've read the texts you sent. And I can't believe how stupid you are!"

Sherlock Holmes did not respond at all, in looks or words. It took Piet Bruhl to hold hid hand out, say "Show me" and take the phone from John Watson's hand, read the message thread.

"You are a mad bastard. But what else is new?" he said eventually. "You think you're going to be fit for a meet this evening?"

"Of course." A tiny shrug.

"And what are we all supposed to do while you're doing that? Start a knitting bee?"

"If you like," the detective declined to rise to the challenge. But whether that was because he felt too ill, or too dislocated from events, John Watson could not tell. And was more worried by that untypical absence than the plan he had made. "Nothing to do with you any more. I've told you before. Told everyone."

"You think it's that easy, do you? We just stand back and leave you to it?"

"Yes. Of course."

John Watson turned to one side and kicked the wall in frustration. Piet Bruhl grinned.

"It's not that simple, Sherlock. We are all a part of this. And of you. You can't expect any of us to be able to just walk away."

"You should. When this started and we thought it was just blackmail, it was my job to solve it. When Lady Smallwood commissioned me to deal with Magnussen."

"The other Magnussen. A different case," Bruhl pointed out.

"Splitting hairs," he responded. "Tackle one Magnussen means tackle them all."

"Is this due to Magnussen? Pedder Magnussen? He's behind all this? Despite his attitude to you, to all of us. Is he as bad as his brother?"

"We will see later. I could be wrong. I'm always wrong about something. But I don't want you with me, and I don't want to theorise.

"I want this finished today. The man behind this will appear at the Musikkens Hus tonight because I texted him to be there. The man who incited Harry to kill on the other end of that phone.

"His appearance will be proof enough for Christina to arrest him, bring him to justice."

"You can't do this alone. We're coming with you."

John Watson glared at his friend. He was very angry, and their faces were very close.

"I've said I do not want you there. This bit is nothing to do with you. This bit is mine. Just mine."

"Don't you get it yet? That makes no bloody difference! We're in this together."

John Watson could hear himself shouting now. He didn't care.

"No."

The denial was quiet and flat and without the usual verbal fireworks.

"Sherlock, We can't let you go alone. Couldn't even if you weren't so….hurt."

Piet Bruhl's conciliatory voice was the voice of reason. "And anyway, we're your friends."

"Don't have friends. Don't want them."

"Tough. You have friends whether you want us or not," was the cheerful, unoffended reply. "I owe you. My husband, his brother and my sister in law owe you. John and his wife owe you. Even Mycroft and Lady Smallwood owe you.

"That's quite a list. So we come with you and just for once you accept our input with good grace. Get it?"

"No!" Sherlock Holmes doubled over in frustration, forced the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"What is the shouting about this time?"

Mycroft Holmes appeared in the doorway. Calm, politely curious, prepared to be critical.

"Sherlock plans to confront this 'Main Man' tonight. Says he doesn't need help, but look at him! We're going with him. He doesn't like the idea."

"Yes. Yes, I see."

A look passed between the brothers that contained an entire silent conversation.

Mycroft finally nodded, impassive.

"Very sound. But I won't come with you, if you will excuse me. Things to do."

His younger brother quirked a half smile, a slight nod, in his direction.

"Humour them, Sherlock. Just this once. Iet them help."

He turned on his heel and returned to the other room.

"See? Even your bloody brother agrees with us!"

"Not exactly, John. But I am too tired to argue."

He slumped down and without another word, or even so much as a sound of discomfort, tolerated superglue and plasters and steri strips. Swallowed painkillers.

When John Watson sat back on his heels and declared himself done, the patient wavered to his feet. Reached for the wall to support himself as he walked. For this time there was so much suppressed fury in the small room no-one offered their help, and the patient was, as usual, too proud and independent to ask, or even consider, reaching for a hand.

"Wake me. Four hours. Things to do."

Neither Watson nor Bruhl answered and the detective hobbled carefully and slowly towards the guest bedroom. The door closed behind him and there was silence.

"What made him like this?" Bruhl enquired mildly, watching without comment as the doctor flung contents back into the first aid box with unnecessary force.

"Good question!"

"It's not recent, is it? To all intents and purposes he had always been like this."

"When he was thirteen he was taken hostage. People were killed, his father nearly died. He was stolen. Missing for two weeks. Snatched back by paras. When he returned he was …changed. Mycroft says. He has always refused to talk about what happened; not even Mycroft or their parents know. He even changed his name."

"Ah."

"What does that mean?"

"Just that explains a lot."

And with everything that has happened since Christmas….." John Watson hesitated, reluctant to detail the shooting, the solitary confinement, the aborted suicide mission….. . "He had a meltdown the other day. After being shot at, and something more. But he never says, One of the paras who had rescued him was there. Even tried talking to him in Sinhalese. Then Mycroft arrived and bullied him….."

"Sounds like a normal day in the Sherlock office."

Despite himself, John Watson grinned.

"As if! But something puzzles me: Sherlock - no, not Sherlock, the former para - said something to reassure him, something I didn't understand. Reassuring him he was safe, not in a coffee house any more. Why would he be terrified at the thought of a coffee house?"

Piet Bruhl looked at him thoughtfully.

"I am a colonel in the _Jaegerkorps,_ John. I have been in the army for over twenty years, and have been on secondment all round the world."

"Yeah, I know."

"Where did you go apart from Afghanistan?"

"Belize, the Gulf, Artic training, the Falklands."

"Not Asia then? Not Sri Lanka?"

"What are you saying, Piet?"

"Not coffee house, John. _Kothi_ house."

The difference in the phrasing; and he had no doubts. That was how Davy Gallagher had pronounced the word, the word he had not understood.

"So what does it mean?"

"A knocking shop, John. A brothel." Colonel Bruhl looked Captain Watson in the eye.

"Sherlock is exceptional by anyone's judgement. Intelligent, resilient, exotic. The perfect hostage and pawn. He must have been a beautiful boy at that age. Perfect material for a _huri._ An _Aravanni."_

"Jesus Christ, must everyone talk in riddles?"

"Sorry. Terminology. Do you understand the phrase 'lady boy.;?"

"Shut up, Piet. Just…..shut up. And don't mention this again. Not to anyone."

o0o0o

The concert was in full swing and Alyssa Almedova was in the middle of the Paganini when the boy sitting alone in the back row heard a voice close to his right ear. A low, warm baritone, but with brisk authority.

"You will not be required to stay behind this evening, Magnus. Don't worry. You will never have to stay behind after a master class or concert again. You have permission to just go home. Do you understand?"

The boy half turned in his seat to look into the gaunt face of a tall man with dark hair and a fascinating mouth. A face he remembered from an earlier daytime master class. When this man had stood on stage and been greeted as an old and much loved friend by his teacher.

The smile he gave the man was exactly the smile Sherlock Holmes had been expecting. Delight with horror and relief intermingled. Sherlock Holmes returned the same smile, which was met with the same recognition.

They nodded at something unspoken between them.

"But I would love to borrow your violin? If I may? Marco will make sure it is returned to you tomorrow."

Magnus Lassen nodded again, beyond speech. Pushed the violin case at his feet backwards beneath his seat so it bumped into the toes of the man crouched behind him.

"Thank you, Magnus," breathed the voice in his ear. "I appreciate that. It's all over now." Then a hand touched lightly to his shoulder, and the man, and the violin, were gone.

The boy breathed freely for the first time in months - years perhaps - and gave a deep sigh. Turned back to the music with a lighter mind and heart.

o0o0o

Alyssa Almedova finished playing the Tchaikovsky with a flourish. This had not been a serious classical concert, but more a display of lollipops - to please her pupils and their parents and the classical music enthusiasts who took time and effort to support the music house in so many ways.

So it had been a relaxed and happy concert, informal and light-hearted, and the essence of goodwill.

She smiled and accepted the applause, and then found herself making a little speech.

"That you all for coming this evening. The master classes and their little concerts afterwards have been a delight. It has been good to be back and to see everyone again. I shall return in the autumn, but for now I travel to Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan for the next phase of my teaching and performing tour.

"So goodbye until we meet again. And thank you!" She raised her hand for silence when the applause broke out, and then added: "Appropriately, there will be more violin music to play you out and away home. Safe journeys.. Good night and God bless you all."

And, right on cue, new violin music began from the rear of the hall.

A piece not many of the audience would know, a musician's piece of music from a little know French composer. Almost twelve minutes of dancing and demanding Baroque beauty - Jean Marie Le Clair's Violin Sonata in D Major, Opus 9 Number 3.

But one person who knew that piece well was Pedder Magnussen. He smiled to himself as he heard the music play, and because it was coming from behind him, assumed the musician was Alyssa, and the performance a recording.

He had been sitting in his customary front row seat, smiling benignly, waiting for the audience to clear the hall before he stepped forward to embrace his musical protégé and discuss the evening.

He did not look round, but caught Alyssa's eye and grinned at her. Mimed playing the violin, put his head to one side and raised his hand; a mime to compliment her on her playing of the Le Clair.

Remembered hearing Sherlock Holmes play that very piece - last autumn. Standing and playing a borrowed violin impromptu, only yards away from where they were now, playing Le Clair for himself and Christina Ravn at their very first meeting. Before Sherlock Holmes returned to England. Before he shot and killed brother Charles on Christmas Day.

Less than two weeks ago…

 _Revenge and the wresting of control was a strange yet rewarding compulsion….._

 _He allowed himself the luxury of enjoying a sense of achievement. Of fate fulfilled. But…._

He paid attention then to what was before him as the last members of the audience trickled away, collecting their bags and clutching their programmes, chatting among themselves and dawdling slowly away through the exit doors.

Alyssa was still standing at the centre of the stage, the point of command, looking serenely at him. But then she shook her head. Mouthed:

"Not me playing. No," and, smiling now, gestured over his head with one hand.

And, finally, Pedder Magnussen turned. Slowly on his heel. Looked directly into the eyes of Sherlock Holmes at the back of the concert hall.

 _Which should not be possible. Not possible at all._

The realisation was akin to being kicked in the chest. Breath stopped. Brain short circuited. Power of speech momentarily lost.

Sherlock Holmes. Who was dead. Should be dead. Killed by Harry Baldwin. Or Enrico Baldissi. Either one, or both of them. That was a certainty. Baldissi had told him so.

 _Sherlock Holmes was dead! He had to be dead!_

But the man was unique, and unmistakeable. This man facing him could be no-one else. Especially when playing a violin so beautifully. A violin. Not any old violin, he could tell that by the tone. But not a Guarneri either. He looked closer.

The violin was a modern master violin. A Gabor Draskoczy. The only person he knew in Aalborg who owned such an instrument was Magnus Lassen.

And Magnus had not waited for him as instructed. As usual. For Magnus had gone, he noticed. And had left his precious violin with…..Sherlock Holmes?

Something shifted in Pedder Magnussen's chest as his universe shifted on it's axis. He knew what that might mean. And drew himself up to his full height, squared his shoulders.

Sherlock Holmes allowed himself a small smile now. He had played the other eight minutes and three sections of the sonata as the audience left. Now he began to play the three minutes of the final movement, the Tambourin. Music for a dance, played on a drone. The dance and the drone at the foundation of the Le Clair came with resonant open strings, trills and expert themic ornamentation.

Magnussen would have applauded Sherlock Holmes on his skill and dexterity and the sheer spirit of his musicianship in different circumstances. Now, instead, he glanced around the room, looking for an opening, a deflection, an escape route. The music receding into irrelevance somehow.

But the room had emptied of everyone but Alyssa Almedova, and the accompanying pianist had already left the stage. Empty of all but the girl, himself and Sherlock Holmes. Despite being transfixed and appalled by the appearance and presence of a Sherlock Holmes who should be dead, movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye, and he turned his head slightly.

Stepping into the doorway at the rear, a tall and powerfully built, dark haired man. Who settled himself central to the space, eyes cool and head raised, right hand hovering at the edge of his jacket, the stance unmistakeable.

An exit door to the right squeaked, opened. A stocky muscular man with bright eyes and a craggy face entered the room, closed the door carefully behind him, folded his arms across his chest and waited.

The exit door to the left opened and revealed John Watson. All watchful calm and military stance. Pedder Magnussen nodded to the only other man in the room he knew and tried a smile. John Watson did not smile back.

Christina Ravn took two soft steps out of the wings onto the stage behind Alyssa. But he heard her, half turning to risk a look behind himself and bring her into view. In a charcoal grey trouser suit she drifted a hand across her hip to clear the jacket from the deep belt at her waist to show a corner of chestnut well polished leather. A pistol holster.

This stern, professional Christina was not the person he knew. He didn't like this new Christina.

Movement made him turn back to Sherlock Holmes. Who had started to walk forward as he played. The slow elegant walk of a panther.

The notes of the tambourin skipped and danced; extra ornamentation in the playing, in true Baroque style, exquisite long spun phrases, trills and diminuendos. Using the full length of the bow in a virtuoso performance. He should be appreciating it more, he really should.

But he was transfixed like a cobra before a mongoose, by the unrelenting focus of Sherlock Holmes' eyes. Hard pale eyes, concentrating, set on their target and unblinking.

The music stopped when the two men stood only an arm's length apart.

Sherlock Holmes lifted the bow away from the strings, and their vibration hummed in the air for few seconds more, eerie in the new silence.

"Hello, Pedder."

The voice was level and unrevealing.

"You're dead," Pedder Magnussen said flatly. "I was told you are dead. "

"Oooh, Pedder. That really is the wrong answer. Only one person was ever told I am dead. The Main Man. Which has to be you."

There was amusement in Sherlock Holmes' measured and beautifully modulated voice. His face - bruised, with split lips, shallow cuts held together with superglue - was, despite all the punishment it had taken, suddenly open and boyish in a way the Danish businessman had never seen before.

Glee, he thought. Sherlock Holmes is full if glee. Then: _this is not reassuring!_

"I'm not dead, as you can see. I am so sorry to disappoint you. Another disappointment. Johan isn't dead either, I'm afraid. It's a blow. I know. Tut-tut."

"I don't understand."

"Yes you do. Think about it. You ordered Baldissi to kill your brother. So Johan would never find what you had been up to. Baldissi failed. My fault. Sorry."

He didn't look sorry at all. And that last word held a strange manic glee. Magnussen clenched his fists and fought to remain calm, to control the blood rushing to his head, the heat of his anger and the cold certainty of something bad about to happen. And to look puzzled and ignorant and cool and collected despite all.

Bluff it out. He could do this.

"We thought Johan would be safer dead," Sherlock Holmes continued. "And he has been. But, as he was dead, you then ordered Baldissi on to the next target. Me. Told him to kill me, instead, No worries there. Young Harry was happy with that, because he was planning to kill me anyway.

"A wonderful bully, young Harry, but a rubbish assassin. Failed to kill Johan, then he failed to kill me.

"Have to admit to one little white lie, Pedder." He shrugged, pulled a face. "I sent you the text saying I was dead, and arranging to meet you here, now. Forgot to sign it, though. So you thought it was Harry texting about me, not me texting about Harry. Oops. Sorry." He waved his hands while explaining, didn't look sorry at all.

 _Glee._

"Yes, Harry, or Enrico, whatever name you called him. So. Yes, he's dead now. Instead of me. See? I always get something wrong. Just a bit."

That cheerful and vaguely terrifying fake smile. A roll of the head, dancing eyes.

Pedder Magnussen stepped back, thinking furiously. Sherlock Holmes watched him think, narrowed his eyes, and started speaking again.

"Of course, it was very kind of young Magnus to lend me his violin - lovely tone, by the way.

"Did you buy that for him? To keep him sweet? Keep him quiet? Stop him telling his mum and dad about you? Oh, Pedder."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Pedder Magnussen said quietly. "You have clearly been through a difficult time. You appear damaged and very stressed. Delusional. I assume you have gone back to drugs? What have you been taking? Coke? Crack? LSD? Something to feed these illusions?"

"Dunno. Blame young Harry. Fed me all sorts of strange substances last night. But that was then, and this is now." He put the violin and it's bow down carefully onto the nearest aisle seat, but did not take his eyes off the taller and older man as he did so. Continued to talk in a friendly conversational tone at odds with the words he was saying. And the thoughts behind them.

"Of course, one of the advantages of being just another junkie like me is that I know how to still operate while under the influence. How to drop through the drugs in the system and press the automatic function button. You know which button that is, Pedder? The one that says 'Play: Record.'"

"You look and sound as if you are still under the influence, Sherlock. No-one will believe a word you say. Least of all me."

"Not under any influence. Had time to recover. From a lot of things, actually. There is nothing wrong with me. But Harry…..Harry was a destructive child. Who knew how to talk. So he talked to me. Well, at me in fact. Boasted about what he had done. And who for. At length. Because he thought he was going to kill me. And I would not tell anyone because I would be dead.

"See how dead I am, Pedder."

He smiled again. Pedder Magnussen wished he wouldn't.

"He wanted to impress me before I died. Show me how clever he was. Even though I already knew."

"Knew what? I really have no idea what you are talking about."

"Is that so? Yet if that is so, why haven't you asked me who it is I am talking about? Aren't you supposed to say: 'Who are you talking about? I don't know anyone called Harry. I was just letting you talk and dig yourself into a trench."

Sherlock Holmes' voice was a pitch perfect imitation of Pedder Maganussen's own.

"I….."

"Keep spluttering, Pedder."

"I am sure you think this is a great joke, but it stopped being funny a long time ago. It was wonderful to hear Alyssa play, and a delight to hear you too. But I have had enough. I am going now."

"You're going nowhere. Except to jail." He paused. "I know, Pedder. I know it all."

"Oh, so you are God himself?"

"No. But sometimes I am quite omnipotent." The voice was unruffled and relentless.

"I know you and Charles remained in contact through the years, whatever you told the world. Or even your little brother. Poor Johan. There were many reasons you wanted your baby brother dead. And poor little Harry had no idea of your real motive in sending him to attack Johan - he just thought you were humouring his plan to get to me, which was a good smokescreen.

"I know there were times you and Charles posed as each other. I know you and he shared his blackmail gains - and with all your music contacts, you passed him a lot of juicy gossip to use. And you both profited."

"Rubbish. You are off your head with drugs. This is insulting." He turned to walk away. But turned back. "You have no grounds to persecute me like this, Sherlock Holmes. Especially as I thought wed were friends with shared interests." His head lifted, arrogance evident.

"I am a respected businessman and a patron of the arts. Ask you girlfriend. Ask anyone in the world of classical music."

They both looked at Alyssa. She stood, unmoving, the Guarneri and bow in one hand, the other hand pressed to her mouth in shock.

"Ask Magnus Lassen. Or Miles Barton. Those boys know who you really are, don't they. Pedder?"

"They are both talented young musicians under my training programme."

"Under you in more ways than one, Pedder."

The pale eyes, usually so impassive, flared for a moment.

"I do not understand, Pedder," Alyssa gasped. "What is happening?"

"Nothing, my dear. This man is neither the hero nor the genius you think him to be. Just an eccentric fool. The world is full of them."

He moved, back slightly, towards the steps to the stage and Alyssa. Sherlock Holmes let him.

"Be careful what you say, Sherlock, or I shall sue you for slander. You will regret crossing me."

"Empty threat," Sherlock Holmes edged forward. "But how impolite of me, Pedder. I have not introduced you to my friends who are blocking your exit.

"Christina Ravn and John Watson you know. The chunky chap opposite John is Colonel Piet Bruhl, a good chum. But perhaps you might be more interested to meet the gentleman at the back. Alfredo Catalani. He is from the Office Of The Representation And Coordination For Combating Traffic In Human Beings. Part of the Organisation for Cooperation and Security in Europe.

"Most people have never heard of either organisation. But I'm willing to bet you have, Pedder. "

There was a brief and telling silence as neither man would look away from the other.

"Just what are accusing me of, Sherlock? All you seem to have on me is the crime of talking to my brother."

There was another silence. One that seemed very long.

Sherlock Holmes dragged in a deep breath. Looked Pedder Magnussen in the eye.

"Mr Catalani has long suspected you of something nastier, more damaging and more evil. And much more profitable. But he had no proof. So he only suspected." The voice was low, measured, burned with something deeply repressed.

"You have always been very careful. He should have asked me. Because I can give him the proof. Because I know."

Three words. And Pedder Magnussen took two - three - steps backwards as Sherlock Holmes came softly forward.

"You know nothing."

The denial was so calm, so confident, a lesser man would have doubted his own conviction. But Sherlock Holmes did not blink or pause.

"Pedder. I know." He repeated, and raised his eyes a little. "Believe me. I really know. Look into my eyes, Pedder. Tell me what you see. Truth? Recognition? Your soul?"

The older man took another step backwards.

" A memory, even? Now look _at_ my eyes, Pedder. And remember. They are unusual, my eyes, An unusual shade of grey. Some cultures think people with grey eyes like mine have mystical powers.

"Some people think eyes like mine are even a selling point. A buyer's bonus."

John Watson behind him stifled a smile, glanced across at Piet Bruhl, who nodded.. And then the possibility of a smile died as soon as it had appeared.

 _Yes, that was Sherlock. And he never hesitated to use his power at full throttle to gain the upper hand._

 _But something about this was stronger, deeper, more personal. Different._

He looked at the others. Watching the two men spar with words. Their apt attention, oddly expectant. They had wide experience of mental battles, criminal expertise, lies and damn lies. What were they seeing here?

" Superstitious nonsense!"

"Is it though? Look deeper. Observe. Me."

Sherlock Holmes pushed his face forward - and for a moment John Watson lost his breath, remembering, with a jolt, himself in the very same stance, facing another Magnussen, Charles Augustus Magnussen standing on a cold Christmas Day terrace in the Cotswolds.

Having his face flicked. Being demeaned. Before the world exploded into death and downfall.

"Look into my eyes, Pedder. At my right eye. See that dark little fleck above the iris? Do you know what some people call that? In some Asian cultures? They call that 'the mark of God.' _Devigange salakundy._

"Does that sound familiar to you?

Silence.

"No? Don't you remember? A boy with that mark of God who was going to be important to you. _Primi lamaga samuga devigange salakundy._ In Sri Lanka. Think back."

"No. No!" Something strange and deep and deliberate moved then in Pedder Magnusson's face.

Sherlock Holmes saw that and smiled. It was not a nice smile and nor did it reassure.

"Well, you may be forgiven for forgetting. It was a very long time ago, wasn't it? The Charlemagne Level in it's earliest days. Trafficking people for sex, all around the world. Finding it's early market. Finding it's feet.

"Twenty two years ago we were all younger, Pedder. All learning our various trades the hard way. You and Charles had always played with your physical similarities, pretended to be each other as if you were twins. Ever since childhood.

"Now you played a bigger game to hide in each other's shadows. For honest trade. And evil.

"Oh yes, Pedder, we know about the Charlemagne Level. Charles playing word games with his own name and his delusion of power and empowerment. Charles the Great. His attitude and his play on words. More ego than clever I think, personally. My friend Alfredo behind you has been chasing The Charlemagne Level down for years.

"And now he knows who is behind it."

"Charles was? Honestly? I know he was a wheeler dealer. I know he skated on the thin ice of legality. But I had no idea…."

"Oh, do shut up! Stop lying! I told you, Pedder. I know."

The coldness of Sherlock Holmes' anger was starting to infect John Watson. He inched quietly closer to the power play being enacted beside the concert hall stage.

Because he knew Sherlock Holmes well. And he knew there was something very wrong. Desperately upsetting. Despite his icy implacable calm, Sherlock Holmes was in some deep form of extremis.

"What is it you think you know?" Pedder Magnusson was still working hard to bluff himself out if the trap Sherlock Holmes had lured him into with his texts. Still believed he could outthink and outmanoeuvre the detective

"Charlemagne. Otherwise Charles the Great. And then behind - or was it alongside him? - Peter the Great. Brother and brother. Oh, how you must have both laughed for all these years. But you can stop laughing now."

Sherlock Holmes squared his shoulders. He was very still, very quiet very focussed. John Watson decided that if he had been standing where Pedder Magnusen was he would be scared now.

"I have been looking for you for a long time, Pedder. And now I have found you.

"You don't remember me, do you? Not sure if I feel flattered or insulted by that. Why should you remember me, anyway?

In the face of such implacable certainty Pedder Magnussen was slowly backing away. Sherlock Holmes as slowly, as inexorably, following him.

"Strange you don't remember one of your first business trips abroad with your new computer research firm, hoping to get in on the space centre plans in Sri Lanka. But then, you were really concentrating more on another sort of logistics. One you have always enjoyed much more. So I'll forgive you. A bit."

He was cold and distant, and sounded as if he was reading from a script.

"I imagine you projecting how much more money you could get for one high quality and unique piece of merchandise rather than ten average ones.

"A pilot scheme for the future, yes? Quality not quantity. Remember that? When the Charlemagne Level started to shift focus? Find that extra level?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you. For Charles human trafficking and the international sex trade was just an extension of what he had always done - sex and leverage and human foibles. Bodies for sale and for use. He understood the basics of that. A male model who started his media empire with a nasty little porn magazine.

"But you had grander ideas, didn't you?

"A better class of life, with classical music, and sex toys. Pretty or clever or special sex toys. Human sex toys found to order with a particular look or talent. To flatter and pander to the depraved appetites of your richest and most discerning customers.

"More money and kudos from the customer. More levers and blackmail possibilities. More anguish for the goods for sale. Remembet?

"That prototype in Sri Lanka all set up for you with a test run and the customer waiting? For you to try out yourself when you collected the boy who was hand picked, stolen and trained.

"All going swimmingly. But then your prototype disappeared, didn't he? After all that input and effort. After two whole weeks of what you would call training, and anyone else would call abuse and indoctrination.

"How annoying that was for you. But wonderful for the boy in question.

"And you had taken so long to find that pretty and very special man child with grey eyes, as specified by your client."

Watson and Bruhl and Catalani exchanged looks. There was something in Sherlock Holmes's voice. Something in his body language. An entire story emerging he had not explained when he described his plan to meet The Main Man he had texted blind earlier thst morning.

A plan, and a meeting, so all would know who was behind Harry Baldwin's mad and murderous plan.

Finally something flared in Pedder Magnussen's eyes. His head went back

"No. I don't believe you. Not after all this time." He looked Sherlock Holmes up and down. And then he laughed.

"Harry was right, then. You really are just an over rated posh boy. Not much of a detective. Just a nobody who missed a chance to be something special."

"You mean used up and dead in a gutter."

"Whatever."

"You don't understand, do you. No more than Charles. About soul and sanity and self and how other people are just as important as you think you are."

"No idea what you are talking about. Are you being sentimental now?" How absurd!"

There was a pause that seemed long but was merely highly charged.

Sherlock Holmes looked up.

"Detektiv Inspektor Ravn. Please come and arrest this man. Two counts of incitement to murder. Blackmail. Drug dealing. Human trafficking. That's a start."

"You can't do this to me, Sherlock. I am special. I don't deserve this."

"After all the people whose lives you have ruined? Or ended? Left in fear? How the name Peter The Great you hid behind left terror in young hearts? Even mine?"

"You pathetic piece of meat. There was nothing special about you! Not now! Not ever!"

The sudden backhanded slap hit with full force, and Sherlock Holmes' head jerked back and he staggered.

A thin line of blood appeared, reopening a split on his bottom lip. He put up one hand to stop Watson and Bruhl and Catalani rushing forward to come to his aid. Then deliberately touched a finger to the already hurt and swollen lip, looked at his own fresh blood on his index finger, and very slowly blinked.

Christian Ravn, with a set face and a stolid stride, walked across the stage towards the steps which would take her down to Pedder Magnussen.

Looking wildly around, at the motionless men, at the policewoman closing in on him, the other Magnussen whirled round, rushed up the six steps onto the stage, and grabbed hold of Alyssa Almedova.

"Leave her alone or else I will kill you. Now. With my bare hands."

The look on Sherlock Holmes' face would have frightened anyone, although he did not raise his voice or move at all.

Pedder Magnussen simply slung the young girl at the policewoman. The violin bow and the Guarneri flew to one side of the stage with a crash, and the two women went down in a heap together at the other side of the stage.

And then Sherlock Holmes was moving. Faster than he should be able to with the injuries he was carrying. Faster than the capable men behind him.

Long strides took him to Magnussen, who he caught by the shoulder and spun round to meet his fist. One hard sharp blow on the move. And John Watson recalling that William Sherlock Scott Holmes had been a schoolboy boxing champion.

Magnussen jerked backwards as the blow crumpled his face. But the grip upon him was unyielding and merciless. And no single restrained blow to stop and to stun.

The consulting detective changed his hold to grasp the front of the smart white shirt, drew back his other arm and struck Magnussen again.

And again. Fast, short, powerful blows. Magnussen was losing conscious, sagging, head, beginning to fall. Would have fallen. But Sherlock Holmes held him erect.

Blow upon blow upon blow. Like a machine. Like the very machine John Watson had once accused him of being.

And it was John Watson who reached Sherlock Holmes first.

Caught that remorseless right arm. Looked into his friend's pale eyes and saw them blank and empty and murderous. And, as he tried to hold and restrain it, felt the strength of the arm as almost superhuman. Rising and falling and pounding.

Grabbed that vicious arm relentlessly pulping Pedder Magnussen's face with both hands and hung on grimly.

"Sherlock! Sherlock, stop! You'll kill him!"

It took all John Watson's determination, all his bodyweight, to slow and stop those punches. And as that arm halted and froze at the maximum point of rise before yet another blow, John Watson risked looking fully into Sherlock Holmes' face.

And was stricken at what he saw.

Because now - this time - tears were flowing, fast and free. Unashamed, unheeded tears, hot and angry. In a hard drawn face. Tears that refused to stop, tears he had denied earlier. Tears he had always denied.

Tears of pain and anger and of indescribable pain.

TO BE CONCLUDED….

 **Author's notes:**

Hansard speed: Hansard is the verbatim record taking service of debate within the UK Parliament. For speed and accuracy it is the apogee of shorthand copy taking.

The Dirigo Club appears in C34 of _Things We Lost In The Flames._ The word is Latin for 'I manage,'

Orla Keily: Irish designer specialising in Scandi style retro design

Musical Lollipops: Much loved and popular pieces, usually short, and usually played as virtuoso encores after a classical concert or performance.

Jean Marie Le Clair: A trail blazing French Baroque violinist and composer, who was murdered (stabbed) outside his home, the murderer never found. The Violin Sonata in D Major Opus 9 No 3 is one of his best known and most performed compositions. Many versions to be found on YouTube. Played by Sherlock Holmes at the very start of this story arc in chapter one of _Things We Lost In The Flames_ , filmed and viewed by Charles Augustus Magnussen and performed for Pedder Magnussen in C32.

Gabor Draskoczy: An award winning violinist and luthier born in Budapest. Who just happens to be the same age as Benedict Cumberbatch!


	17. Chapter 17

The Magnussen Legacy

Chapter 17

' _There is no such thing as forgetting. The inscriptions on the mind remain forever, to be revealed when the night returns.'_

 _Thomas de Quincey_

A hand snaked softly around the back of the most solitary man in the world and risked a touch, a brief pressure against the spine.

Glacial eyes turned.

"What?" The single syllable was not welcoming.

"Are you fine, my _chocnuttyk?"_

The only reply was a slow blink.

She took an end of the scarf around her neck and removed tear tracks without comment from beneath the opal eyes.

He neither moved nor looked at her. Frozen in his fate. Lost in some hinterland between revenge and remorse.

John Watson had used all his not inconsiderable strength to haul Sherlock Holmes off Pedder Magnussen, to break the focus that had the adult punching - punching - _punching -_ in a way the thirteen year old boy had been unable to. At the target he had sought for so many years.

Both of them - all of them - knew the ruthless machine that drove the heart of the consulting detective could have kept punching until another Magnussen was lying dead at his hands.

So when John Watson finally got Sherlock Holmes to stop, he marched him swiftly backwards from the man he had been pummelling and tried not to remember marching him backwards in the exact same way at _The Landmark_ more than a year earlier, when one man returned to life and the other stopped grieving. Both things being otherwise impossible. Or so it had seemed at the time.

With fresh blood that was not his own splattered on his clothes, face and hands, the detective watched without comment as Ravn and Catalani between them hauled Magnussen to his feet, bleeding but consumed of a silent fury almost as strong as that of his attacker, and snapped on handcuffs while cautioning him and reciting his rights.

Neither spoke to Sherlock Holmes, however, and avoided even looking in his direction. While John Watson doggedly kept his position between victor and victim. Just in case.

So it was only when they appeared to be taking the Danish businessman out of the hall did Sherlock Holmes step around his friend and hold out his hands.

"Detektiv Inspektor Ravn…" The tone was commanding. The face anything but, while the hands that came forward were held parallel, wrists pushed together. A dumb show of being ready to be placed in constraints without excuse or apology.

Christina Ravn looked down at the lean bloodied hands with their scarred wrists, the hand with the bleeding knuckles, for what seemed a very long time.

"What?" The voice was a professional, distracted snap.

" I'm not sure. Your call. Assault with intent to kill? Actual bodily harm? Whatever you….."

She lifted her head and met his eyes.

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Mr Holmes. Hr Magnussen was sadly hurt when he fell off the stage while resisting arrest. After attacking myself and Miss Almedova. Did you not notice that happening?"

"We did, Inspektor. Quite a long drop. Appalling how much damage one can do to oneself when landing on metal chairs….."

Piet Bruhl's tone was conversational, steady, normal. He had not moved from his position by the side exit. But now he looked at Sherlock Holmes with challenge in his eyes.

Alfredo Catalani, with Pedder Magnussen in his grip, nodded. As did John Watson.

"We all saw that, Sherlock. Hr Magnussen is not going to argue, now are you Pedder?" The security agent tightened his grip.

Pedder Magnussen's unbloodied eye turned to John Watson - implacable, steady, with that now familiar military stance - then slowly up to Sherlock Holmes.

"Would there be any point? With all of you against me? This is not right. It is not legal."

"No. But it's justice. Which is a lot less than you deserve."

Sherlock Holmes' voice had a strength to it, an authority that had nothing to do with arrogance or victory. Everyone in the room heard and recognised it.

"I should have killed you all those years ago. I should have known you were not normal."

"You weren't looking for normal. You were looking for exceptional. You always have been. Regardless of morality."

"That is what made me special. Made us special. My brother and me."

"Oh, you are special all right, Pedder. And your fate will be special too. Take him away, Inspektor. I am bored now."

Pedder Magnussen did not answer, but he did not drop his head either. And he was still looking back at Sherlock Holmes as he was taken away.

As Ravn and Catalani left the hall with Pedder Magnussen between them, there was a moment of silence and inaction. While Sherlock Holmes stood alone, feeling cheated by a sense of anticlimax, stilled and contemplating his loss of self control and his desire for some form of oblivion. At a total loss about what to do now.

And then came that touch from behind him, after he had almost forgotten she was there.

He looked round and down at the Russian girl.

"Check the Guarneri. Make sure it is OK," he said automatically.

"You first," she insisted softly. Took both his awkwardly held hands in hers. Saw the scars, and ran a gentle thumb across the worst ones on the right wrist, turned both hands to view the fresh damage, the raw and bleeding knuckles on the right hand, the older damage from the night before she did not understand.

"Your poor hands," she said. Without sentiment or judgement.

Took off the sky blue cotton scarf with seagulls flying, and wrapped it gently around the hurt knuckles.

He was so taken aback he let her. Let her put a hand to his jaw, turn his face so he was looking at her.

She watched something struggle behind his eyes, and stretched up to put her lips softly on his jaw. Delicately avoiding the cuts on his face, the split lips.

"I do not understand what has just happened. But whatever it is you are not to blame. I can see in your eyes that is so."

"No. I. Am. My loss of control is unforgivable. You should not have seen that. I apologise."

"For what, my Azrael? For my avenging angel being human? And avenging?"

"Yes."

"You must not apologise. We are all human. So we all understand." She patted his cheek and ignored the way he recoiled.

"Come to my apartment with me. So you may rest and recover." Her hand played with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"You have been through much, I can tell. You need to sleep and forget. I am Russian. We know how close death and passion lie together beneath the skin. Come back with me and I will give you sleep."

Her invitation could not have been softer or plainer.

"No," he said.

"You warned Pedder you would kill him with your bare hands if he touched me…." she whispered close to his face. "That is ….exciting. Unusual. Special. I should thank you."

He lifted her hand from his nape with his uninjured hand and let it drop.

"You are talking to the wrong person. I would be a disaster. Go with Marco. He loves you, _malen'ky,_ " - little one. "He will love you and inspire you. I cannot do that."

She sighed. Looked into his eyes. Withdrawn but resolute.

"But you will stay my friend?"

"Whenever needed. But not for that."

The left hand reached for hers and he drew her fingers to his face, brushed them with his lips before he let them go in a gesture that was courtly and old fashioned but which robbed John Watson of breath seeing it made by Sherlock Holmes.

"I only met you when you saved me. I feel you have saved me again, somehow. Is that so?"

"No. You have too much imagination." His head rose slowly, and he almost imperceptibly moved away from her.

"When I am next in London there will be concert tickets for you," she said firmly. "You were my guardian angel when I needed you. I will never forget my debt. Or what might have been. A stone angel is still an angel. With a corner of my heart."

She captured his uninjured hand, turned it and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. For a moment their eyes met, and she smiled up at him. Strong for him, but then with a new uncertainty.

"What will happen to me? To the Guarneri and my music education programme Pedder sponsored?"

"You are funded legitimately through his charitable foundation. That foundation will go on until his fate is decided. That will not be for many months. By then you will have new and stronger support. Pedder's crimes are not yours. You are too rich a talent to be sullied by this." He gave her a small reassuring smile.

"Leave me. You have had a long day, a busy week. Go with Marco and rest."

He turned from her, slowly down the steps off the stage, through the auditorium and out, followed by John Watson and Piet Bruhl. He did not turn back to look at her, even though she lingered. Before she went to the Guarneri.

o0o0o

Without consultation about their destination, they returned to Christina Ravn's flat, driven there by Matti Anker in the Saab.

Sherlock Holmes moved slowly and ponderously. Bent, shuffling. Like an old man, thought John Watson. Later, Piet Bruhl described Sherlock to his family like a man in a bad dream.

The other two men took their mood from him, silent and impassive. Followed him into the flat, watched him move across the room. Towards the bathroom and bedroom.

At the bathroom door he paused, hand on the doorjamb.

"Going to bed. Suggest you do the same. Will explain all in the morning, when I give my statement and Christina and Freddie are here. Save repeating myself."

Piet Bruhl understood the need for solitude and immediately accepted this as sensible.

"Back for 10am unless I hear different, then. Need anything before I go?"

"No. But thank you. "

He opened the bathroom door and Piet Bruhl gave a brief nod, turned to leave. Throwing "You coming? We'll drop you off at your hotel," to John Watson behind him.

"No," he said, considering. Repeated "No," more strongly. "His hand needs dressing. Must hurt like hell."

"Always the doctor," Piet Bruhl said with a grin, and was gone.

The apartment became quiet. For twenty seconds. Sherlock Holmes raised his head to look directly at his doctor.

"Go away."

"I need to be sure you are OK. "

"To report back to Mycroft? Pah!" He tore his good hand through his hair impatiently gesture. "He's back at the First Hotel, I assume. Noticed he wasn't with you this evening. Not wanting to talk to me. See the result of his actions come to pass."

"Lay off him. He saved your life yesterday. "

"I should be grateful? Go away, John. You've had enough excitement for one day. Shot a gun, saved a life, soothed and mended the injured. Done enough."

"Not quite, clearly. Let's look at that hand."

"No. Go to your own hotel. Sleep in your room for once. Stop the staff there thinking you are here on a sex holiday and have scored every night."

"Try being less bloody offensive, will you?"

"No. That's what I'm like. You know that. If you don't like it, walk away. Walk away regardless."

He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

All went quiet. And for once John Watson did what he was told.

o0o0o

So often now he had sat in this corner of her lounge, his back to the view of the Limnfjord, Solving Christina's serial murders, sleeping, deducing, even reading a newspaper. The newspaper that had contained, all those months ago, the photograph of Pedder Magnussen presenting a music trophy to Magnus Lassen. The first time he realised Pedder Magnussen even existed.

Magnus would have his violin returned today. And speak to a specially trained female police officer and a psychologist. And then begin to address the demons that had been masquerading as special precious things to him for so long.

With that thought assured, he breathed deeply and looked at the group of people sitting silently and looking back at him. Waiting for him to begin.

He had settled himself in position before anyone arrived. Not wanting them to see the pain when he moved, the discomfort he had finding a position where he could sit in relative comfort. After an almost sleepless night of physical pain, and mental anguish he could never admit.

Today no-one would expect him to be polite, or stand to greet them. Despite his wishes Christina Ravn had helped him rise and shower, forced tea and toast into him, presented a helping hand to cross the room and sit down. All without judgement or comment. And he appreciated a reserve that matched his own.

So now he leaned back into the cushions, clasped his hands with calm deliberation in his lap, determined to keep them there to appear relaxed, in control.

 _Control, control.._

"It started with the coffee," he began. Had them puzzled with his first words.

 _Good. Made them think about the solution, stop them thinking about me._

"Did it start with the coffee? No, not quite. It started when I noticed he was looking left when he should have been looking right. At the very beginning…..

"Sherlock, you're not making sense," Freddie Catalani was brisk. He read the body language, and knew Sherlock Holmes - exhausted and in pain - did not want to do this. Yet he had to, needed to. And it was his job to keep the narrative flowing. His recorder was running, just like Christina Ravn's. Formal. Official. Proper process.

But he did not have the emotional connection the others shared with this complex and self destructive, self controlled man; he had to be the one to push..

"Sorry. Right. Pay attention.." The witness hauled in several deep breaths.

"If a person looks right, looking inward while speaking, they are remembering, applying memory and logic. If they look left, then they are creating. Lying. In fact. Basic human tells. Understand?"

The others nodded. It felt like a clinical lecture.

"I first met Pedder Magnussen here in Aalburg. Last autumn, while convalescing. I already knew Christina, had helped her solve a serial murder."

"He solved it," she interjected. "In less than twenty four hours." Hers was a mock grumble, and she smiled in response to that tiny quick frown across the bridge of his nose.

"Nothing more than a five, simple. Afterwards we went to a restaurant. Pedder arrived; just coincidence. No connection except a remarkable likeness to his brother. It's never twins…." He restrained a small internal smile.

 _Not twins. But as good as._

"I presented myself as a musician. He asked me to play for him and I did. He was different to his brother.

"But he kept looking left. I watched his eyes but ignored my instinct. I was a fool. Always get something wrong. But I was ill and….absent. Concerned stress was misleading me.

"I was planning to defeat Charles. Pedder warned me about his brother's attraction to me - being his type. I ….knew that. Ignored the other inference." He shook his head.

"Fast forward. Jack Smallwood killed himself. I killed Charles. On Christmas Day. Then so much happened…." he did not mention being knocked out when hit over the head with a chair. Being imprisoned for a week. Given a suicide mission for punishment and absolution. Threat and cancellation. Of drugs despair and defiance.

"I never expected Pedder to come to Baker Street. Be kind. Forgiving. I was still not…firing on all cylinders. But I get ahead of myself…..

"One of Charles's henchman escaped Appledore. Harry Baldwin, passing himself off as Italian knifeman Enrico Baldissi. He was a lone wolf and an unknown quantity, boasting Mafia connections. A self delusional red herring, but I didn't know that then. Just knew I had to act. Fast. To keep others safe.

"I knew how dangerous Baldissi was. Voice of experience. Information from underworld and unofficial contacts confirmed sex crimes and assault. Connections to Denmark, to Aalburg. Aalburg again.

"Baldissi's threat - promise, rather - was to attack Magnussen's other victims to make me suffer mental agony before the physical, then kill me. I had to subvert that plan, become the irresistible target. Weak. Too easy a kill to resist.

"I offered myself to Baldissi. Who indeed abducted and attacked me. His response proved I could distract a vicious sexual predator who struck fast." The narrative continued. Briskly impersonal.

"Johan Magnussen had 'die' carved into his forehead. Pedder's musical prodigy was attacked in an attempt to steal his Guarneri violin she plays. It was only later I saw my being there was no coincidence but finely timed; getting the victim into place relative to my normal nocturnal walking route. The attack was not at Pedder himself…there was a reason for that. To not reveal Pedder's whereabouts then. Or when his brother died.."

He paused. Drank some water. This was proving harder than expected.

"I did not understand Pedder's arrival at Baker Street . Why be kind to the man who killed your brother? Then our taxi, Pedder inside, was shot at. Baldissi was there. Punishing, deflecting me into believing Pedder's lack of involvement. Baldissi's attack kept my concentration on him, as intended. Fortunately Freddie turned up."

Catalani shot him a grin, and shrugged.

"So when Baldissi went to Aalburg, I followed. But first I had to visit Pedder at the Savoy.

"He offered coffee, which started me thinking….." for a moment he was back in that memory. "Pedder was taking breakfast when I arrived in his suite. There was coffee, ready poured, waiting for me.

"But reception had not told him I would be there. He did not know.

"So why would a man take breakfast alone, but pour two cups? On the off chance? He covered it well. But the only answer was someone else was in the suite, who had abandoned his untouched coffee and was hiding.

"Nor did I understand how Pedder held a premium suite over New Year, and - really? - just for two days? Something jarred.

"Baldissi was being hunted down. Not with family or known friends, not registered in any hotel. He may have been using a false name, but it felt as if, even without Charles, Baldissi had a protector and refuge. At the Savoy, perhaps?

"I have a contact on the Savoy staff, once part of my homeless network. He checked the Savoy's security cameras. Sent me screen grabs; they looked innocuous. Pedder, in and out. And yet - "he lifted Alfredo Catalani's mobile with the pictures he had forwarded, passed it around the room for all to see. "Dates - booking details - showed Pedder held the suite for two weeks from Christmas Eve and was still in occupation. Why lie? Why hide being in England? If on legitimate business, there was nothing to hide. So the business was not legitimate. And in his booking history more than one bill had been paid by CAM News. There was the link. One suite, two brothers. Interchangeable.

"Then there were the ties. It may not be unusual for a man to enter his suite and emerge wearing a different tie. Quite another to go out in one tie and return wearing a different one. Unless that man is two men, uncannily alike. Brothers, in fact.

"Brothers who maintained they had not spoken for years. Even convinced their baby brother of it. And yet…" He paused, Drank water again,. He felt ill, old, and tired to his soul. He continued.

"Charles's career began with the sex trade. I knew him to be a sexual predator.

"In those screen grabs someone who may or may not be Pedder enters his suite with a boy identified as Miles Barton, a promising young violinist. There is something about Pedder's hand on the boy's back that alerted me….but .there existed no hint he had the same predilictions as his brother. "

"Yet there he was, developing young classical musicians; active in his own sponsorship programme, travelling to countries rife in human trafficking and the child sex trade, all part of his pioneering worldwide musical education programme.

"What better cover could he have? Acclaim and culture as cover for sleaze and sex. Then Freddie admitted he was chasing down something called the Charlemagne Level - an international criminal syndicate specialising in that very thing."

"How did you know about Charlemagne? Before I told you?" Freddie Catalani, surprised, had his question ignored.

"I had not made the connection between Charlemagne and Charles thinking himself to be great; but I finally also realised Pedder is Danish for Peter, and that Charlemagne's great ally in the syndicate, his number two, was an equally mysterious Peter The Great. Not a Russian tsar, clearly. Wordplay."

He exchanged a look with Catalani, who again opened his mouth to ask…then thought better of it.

"Charles Augustus Magnussen had three lieutenants -Eric Carlsson, Simeon Kosi Nzeme and Harry Baldwin/Baldessi - code named after three of the Guarneri family who made marvellous violins. Like me, Pedder owned a Guarneri violin.

"Inconsistencies in Pedder's story irked me. Christina knew him as heading a computer development firm. Yet he told me his family firm made nuts and bolts. Economic with the truth? Or tailoring it?

"From the Danish version of Company's House I learnt he headed both. Knowing that, I researched Pedder - once being in Sri Lanka for a space science conference to kickstart plans for a national space agency. At that same time, Sri Lanka was where whispers about Charlemagne and it's targets began."

"How did you know that?" Catalani was ignored again.

"I still had to find Baldissi. Behind the same protector in Aalburg as in London? I now had to take Pedder seriously into account. He is on the board at the Mussik Huus and had privileges there. Staying here, I noticed an entire empty floor of a neighbouring apartment block. Christina explained the concert hall held grace and favour accommodation opposite. Another link.

"Johan was stabbed and we had to think on our feet. Declare Johan dead to protect him. But why attack Johan again? Because Johan had to die rather than jointly inherit Charles's estate with Pedder? So he did not learn about his brother's wicked trade? Who he worked with?

"So Johan had to go. The other attacks were a smokescreen to hide that intent. All the blame to fall on Baldissi and his pathetic vendetta. A perfect plan. Except only one person could be behind it, as only one person would profit.

"Harry believed he could take me, and I needed him to. Using that burn phone, Pedder told Harry to kill me. I was getting too close. But he underestimated Harry's conceit and stupidity. After Harry caught me, he became overconfident, Knowing he would kill me at the end of that night, he boasted everything he had ever done.

"I gave Harry enough rope to hang himself. So he did.

"When he died - _and he was always going to die_ \- " he bit down on the way his voice rose and hardened then. "That phone was confession and proof. From Harry - and the man who gave the orders. So when my death was ordered, Harry confirmed it done and arranged a meeting. Or rather, I did. So the only person who could turn up was that man at the end of that telephone.

"Pedder condemned himself by appearing at Alyssa's concert. Magnus was there too. The Danish version of Miles.

"We had the proof and the people we needed. I daresay relative paperwork was at Appledore all along. And is now in the hands of MI5 and 6, looking like an incongruous file they haven't even studied yet. After all, it is still less than two weeks since Charles died."

He smiled brightly then, looked round the room at his audience.

"The devil will be in the detail, and the detail will be in the paperwork. Sherlock Holmes is not dead, and neither is Johan Magnussen. And someone needs to have a more serious chat with the Ghanian. The only member of the inner circle still alive. Apart from Pedder."

"Any questions?"

.

o0o0o

Davy Gallagher was leaning calmly against his hired black cab waiting for them outside the airport terminal.

"Just coincidence then?" Sherlock Holmes' voice was deep with disillusionment.

"I booked him to collect us," Mycroft offered with haughty indifference. "My regular driver, Andrew, is away, and I prefer to be chaffeured by someone I know."

Gallagher grinned but made no comment.

The journey into central London was discomfortingly quiet, but Sherlock Holmes had spoken barely a word since leaving Christina Ravn's home. And neither brother nor friend were able to engage him in conversation.

Leaving Aalburg had been disconcertingly low key in John Watson's eyes. Christina Ravn had shaken hands with Watson and Mycroft and kissed them on the cheek. But had pressed herself against Sherlock Holmes and merely said: "There is always a place for you here."

While Catalani said: "See you next time," and simply walked away. Piet Bruhl had shaken hands with them all but had only the briefest of words for Sherlock Holmes.

"You know where I am."

Sitting in the window seat next to John Watson for the flight, the consulting detective propped his chin on his hand, turned away, closed his eyes and gave every impression of being asleep.

John Watson knew Sherlock Holmes was pretending, and so did his elder brother. But Mycroft was not engaging either, had not spoken to him directly since retrieving his sword stick in the apartment where two men had died. And John Watson did not understand that, either.

The relationship between the two brothers would always be a mystery to him. And at present he wanted to crack their heads together.

He had tried to speak to Sherlock Holmes on the plane, but had been ignored. Offered a sympathetic touch to an arm before that arm was withdrawn.

"I know you aren't asleep," he whispered. "I know you are exhausted. Hurting. Talk to me."

There was no reaction whatsoever. Eventually he gave up. Sat and thought about what he was returning to. Work and home, Mary and a baby, normality and some sort of peace. Which felt right but oddly wrong. Incomplete.

The plan was to drop Mycroft off in Whitehall, move on to Windsor to collect Mary Watson and bring her home. But the cab did not drop them off on the road itself, as normal, but turned into one of the narrow anonymous entrances into one of the darkly cavernous government building courtyards.

A grey Rolls Royce Ghost parked in one corner was not visible until the cab had entered the square claustrophobic space. With George Bradshaw sitting inside.

"No," Sherlock Holmes' snapped, voice very low. "No. I am not doing this."

He braced hard back in the corner of the seat, fists clenched. His companions looked but made no comment, not knowing what he was rejecting.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Bradshaw said, leaving the Ghost, stepping forward to the cab that parked close and parallel. "Time for a word, I think. Long overdue."

"No."

Sherlock Holmes rose, opened the door, tried to push past Lady Smallwood's driver until what seemed a light touch took him back down into the seat. Slammed the door closed again. As Davy Gallagher switched off the cab's engine and turned to face them.

"Sorry, Sherlock," he said softly.

"Would you kindly tell us what is going on?" Mycroft Holmes' voice was precise and neutral. John Watson could not tell if the British government really did not know, or was going through the motions. So he watched and waited. Tense, over aware. Hypnotised to see Mycroft had, without even looking, gripped his brother's arm and was holding him still in the seat, as if effortless, as if detached.

"Mr Holmes, sir," Bradshaw could not be more deferential. Then corrected himself. "Sirs. Sorry." A slight twitch of a smile at the irony of both Mr Holmes together in a black cab.

"I understand your trip to Denmark has ended the Charlemagne Level network. Exposed it as being led by the late Mr Charles Augustus Magnussen and his brother, Pedder Lars Magnussen. That the surviving Hr Magnussen has been apprehended and charged. In custody and unlikely ever to be released."

"You are very well informed, Colour Sergeant." Mycroft nodded.

"Thank you, Mr Holmes, sir. I do my best. Currently I am waiting for my lady, to take her home, But as everyone involved is here….this is too good an opportunity to waste. And I think - Davy and me think - it is time. Now the danger is past."

"For what? You speak in riddles," Mycroft said. Taking firmer hold on his brother, stilled his attempts to escape and leave the cab by the other door.

"Please, Mycroft….."The voice -unusually - cracked.

For a moment their faces were very close, and not for the first time John Watson saw some silent communication pass between them. But this time the older brother took and twisted the other arm of the younger and kept twisting until Sherlock was somehow sitting in the middle of the seat, between his brother and John Watson. Being held down visibly now. Mouth a thin line. Hands clenched between knees.

George Bradshaw watched and waited until the occupants of the cab were still. Nodded to Davy Gallagher, who opened the rear window between Bradshaw outside, and the three men inside, then centrally locked the cab doors with a tell-tale thunk of machinery.

"Many years ago we promised Sherlock never to tell what happened in Sri Lanka. Not just because he didn't want anyone to know, but because he - we - feared he could be identified and targeted again.

"But now there is no-one to come after him. And much as he still won't want it…..those closest to him need to know. "

"That's you two, then," Gallagher grinned at John Watson and \Mycroft Holmes.

"Why do you think we need to know? Mycroft enquired. Head back, impassive. As if reading a script.

"To understand what happened to him. Why he's Sherlock," George Bradshaw said simply. "Secrets fester. But sharing is caring. Then we can all move on. Trite clichés. But true. Yes?"

Two nods.

"Where's my say in this? I don't want…."

"Mr Holmes, sir. What you want and what you need are not always the same thing. We need to get past this now, sir, while we have the chance. Or you never will."

George Bradshaw looked at him for a long time. Expression unreadable.

There was a taut silence, a sigh.

"Don't call me 'sir.' "

Somewhere between bitterness and resignation, Sherlock Holmes slumped down. Bent his head.

"Do what you bloody like. Just get it over with."

George Bradshaw nodded, and looked at Davy Gallagher.

"When William was taken," Gallagher began, "George and me knew we had to act fast. We were at least six hours behind the bandits. Locals hadn't dared do anything against guns and the threat of retribution, but they pointed us the right way - up country."

Davy Gallagher spoke with the brisk detached air of an official debriefing, looking at Sherlock Holmes all the while.

"We had already agreed with Mr Mycroft Holmes to stay in pursuit until the target was either retrieved or the body identified - proof positive either way.

"For three days we travelled blind. I had enough Sinhalese to talk to the locals. The bandits had been spotted, on the run with their hostage. A thin pale boy, they said. We knew we were after the right gang.

"The further we went, the more information. A foreign boy. Hands tied. Skinny, pretty. Grey eyes, locals said. They described him as a grey ghost . Couldn't be anyone else, could it?

"We were told the boy would be taken to a town with proper roads. Where he could be sold and quickly removed by car. Never seen again.

"We picked up our pace. Eventually we came to Kitul Batta. Which fitted the bill and where various local people said they thought he would be.

"We spied out the land, recce'd at night. Eventually we located the local kothi house: the brothel. We saw six bandits holed up there. Our targets."

He paused. Looked away from Sherlock Holmes, who finally raised his head from his hands defiantly. To snarl:.

"Tell them the rest. You've come this far."

"We raided the house and eliminated the problems," George Bradshaw took up the narrative, making light of a deadly confrontation, leaning against the cab's open rear window, not quite looking inside. "But when we checked the house, we couldn't find him. At that point, we were verging on the hysterical. Had he already been spirited away? Had we already lost him?

"So we checked again, more thoroughly and slowly. Ended up in the women's quarters. Lots of cowering and screaming. Found a door hidden behind a wardrobe to a tiny locked room without windows. We shot out the lock.

"Inside there was just a bed. A veiled woman sitting on it in a beautiful red sari with all the gold adornments, hands, feet and face covered with the dark henna tattoos of a marriage ceremony.

"She wasn't panicking like the others, just sitting with her veil draped low over her head, looking down, hands together in a _namaste,_ rocking gently. Did not respond when we spoke to her."

"I noticed she was wearing heavy gold bangles. And under the bangles there were silk wrappers on her wrists. Didn't make sense. So much henna, so much decoration and jewellery. That meant a high caste wedding." Davy Gallagher took up the narrative. Shrugged apologetically. "Fortunately I knew what I was looking at; my late wife was Sinhalese.

"This was not the place or time for such extravagence. Especially as she was locked in there and without female attendants…." Davy Gallagher stopped. Stuttered, tried again.

"She was…..I was….on high alert. There was something not right. I just couldn't place it. I glanced away to say as much to George.

"As I did I heard the unmistakeable click of a pistol being cocked. I looked back and found myself looking down the barrel of an old Browning, held high and unwavering between her two hands. She had been hiding the gun in her clothing and was about to shoot me. I'd been caught out like a bloody amateur." He shook his head. The incident still rankled.

"George shouted something then. Just a name. Not one I'd heard before. George told me later it was the name he had always preferred for himself. Have heard it a lot since," he grinned.

"Sherlock," John Watson offered with total confidence.

"Yeah. Sherlock. And at that name the gun and the head both swung up a little. George stepped forward, took the gun away and swept back the veil….."

"And at that point I knew we had him. Those eyes, those cheekbones….."George Bradshaw was lost in the memory. " I thought the clothes and the henna were just a disguise," he added almost inconsequentially.

"What do you mean? Thought?" demanded John Watson.

Bradshaw ignored him and carried on. "The silk wrappers on his wrists under the bangles concealed his wrists were tied together; must have been tied since he was taken, because when we freed him his wrists were deeply cut and septic. He'd also been stabbed in the face with a sari pin….

 _That scar on his cheek. The one I asked about. When I was trying to find out about the scars on his wrists…just days ago….._

"…..a couple of broken teeth, split lip and fingernails. All we could see then."

He hesitated. "Do you want to continue telling this?" he asked Sherlock Holmes.

A quick look, a shake of the head. "Why should I? When you do it so well?"

The acid tone would have made anyone hesitate. But Bradshaw simply nodded and carried on.

"We wanted to move him but he refused. Explained he had stolen the gun that morning and was going to shoot himself and take down as many bandits as possible with him. He had a full chamber of bullets." Bradshaw shook his head. Looked straight at Sherlock Holmes again. Who did not react. "We said we had dealt with the bandits. He told us to leave him anyway. Wanted us to leave him so he could…."

John Watson jerked upright in reaction.

 _Almost a replica of the melt down a few days ago._

Davy Gallagher looked at him, read his thoughts, and nodded grimly. John Watson risked a look at Sherlock Holmes' face and wished he had not done so. Put a hand to his friend's side. Support: even if comfort was impossible.

"I had never met him before," Gallagher said, voice quiet and unguarded. "I had forgotten our quarry was just a child. This utterly determined thing in front of us was not a virgin bride about to be married, but just a boy. Not quite thirteen years old, Who had undergone…."

George Bradshaw stopped the memories with a more objective narrative.

"His attitude worried us. Polite, detached, terribly public school. Said he didn't want to put us to trouble. This was his punishment for getting everyone killed. He had been told if he hadn't fought back and held the siege, everyone in the visiting party, his family, would have been allowed to survive. But as punishment they were all dead. Except him. Their deaths an example to others.

"And now he had been readied to go somewhere else, and he would never be seen again.

"Which was why he was dressed as a bride. Because that is what he would be doing…"

Mycroft turned his head with terrifying slowness to look at his brother, an expression on his face John Watson could not read. His brother ignored him.

"He said he understood his punishment. He was totally alone, now. We couldn't convince him everyone was still alive. Including his father. When he finally caved in and let us move him, we found he was bleeding. So we commandeered a tuk-tuk to get him to the nearest hospital. Before we left he insisted on seeing the bodies of his captors."

"I don't think he believed anything we told him until he spoke to Mr Mycroft by telephone, who reassured him. It was a difficult time."

"What do you mean by bleeding?" John Watson asked the question Mycroft Holmes was avoiding.

Bradshaw and Gallagher looked at each other, and then at Sherlock spoke in a voice so distant and detached it sounded totally normal.

"William was repeatedly misused, physically and with a variety of objects. As punishment and part of a training process. In his new life he would become a sex slave, a lady boy in local parlance. He needed the skills. His crash course, you might say

"His physical beauty, his grey eyes, that mark of God fleck in one eye….all made him highly desirable. And there was a specialist market for that. Worth a lot of money. Especially as he had passed the exam. As it were."

Mycroft released his younger brother from his iron grip. Sherlock Holmes watched him withdraw, and the way he lifted his head and smiled so coldly then was hard to take.

"See? That's what I always tried to avoid."

"Avoid?"

"The revulsion…."

"For God…..I'm not revolted, you stupid child."

"Then you should be. I was." He pulled a deep breath, shook his head. Looked fleetingly at Bradshaw and Gallagher

"This is beyond boring. Are we done?" He paused, waited for replies that did not come.

"Good. You can officially put me - your burden - down now. _And unlock these bloody doors, Davy!"_ For a second the voice hit an edge of hysteria. Pulled back. "Thank you." As the door catches audibly released

Other door hinges squeaked then, opening from inside the building, as footsteps approached. That unmistakable sound of brisk high heels. An elegant older woman with a blonde chignon wearing a formal black suit.

With nothing restraining him now, Sherlock Holmes scrambled past his brother and out of the cab. Went to the woman and stood square before her.

"So. You have returned." The voice was neutral, controlled.

Lady Elizabeth Smallwood stood and appraised the tall young man before her. Took in the split lips, the superglue holding skin together, the hurt hand. Saw pain in the rigid stance, the less than ordinarily graceful movements.

"Indeed."

"With mission accomplished. More than mission accomplished."

"I got lucky."

He twitched a brief unamused grin at her. She appreciated his irony.

"Luck is relative. You carry damage. How are you?"

"Fine. Just need sleep. I Haven't slept properly since Christmas Eve. Been a bit busy."

"Are you going to ask? About your pardon?"

He slanted a look, but did not speak. She sighed and shook her head.

"Didn't celebrate your birthday either?"

"No point."

"Hmn." She continued to look at him, for although he kept his head up, he did not meet her eyes.

"Was it worth the effort? The sacrifice?"

He frowned, puzzled.

"Magnussen and his legacy are destroyed. Everyone finally safe this time. A trade off. So of course."

"You also took down a human trafficking network Freddie Catalani had been chasing for years. Through connections only you could have made.

"Oh…that."

"Oh. That," she mimicked gravely. "William. You can't mention this to your father - he doesn't remember, and it would upset him. Or to your mother, because she still doesn't understand who you are and what you do. Mycroft? That is between the two of you.

"But my husband would have been proud of you, and so am I. You acted above and beyond the call of duty. And someone should say that to you."

"That had nothing to do with duty. It was my…indulgence."

Her hand flickered out and delivered a slap to the side of the already injured face. The surprise hurt more than the strike. They both knew she had pulled the blow. He still refused to react or stagger.

"Behave yourself," she snapped. "Or your objectivity will sound like self pity. What you did was justice, and it was time. A long time coming. Many people around the world are grateful to you for that. I have been asked to thank you officially. "

"I don't want thanks. "

"I know." Her voice softened. She touched his arm. "Cash the cheque my husband gave you before he died. You have earned every penny. And next week, when you feel better, come and see me at the Hampstead house. So we can discuss your pardon. What you are owed. What happens next.

"And believe your actions have solved a lot of problems. Not just yours."

"Yesss….." Mycroft Holmes' drawl was suddenly at his brother's back. "Give him six months and he could render all of us jobless."

"Don't be jealous, Mycroft, it doesn't suit you."

Elizabeth Smallwood's voice was mild, understanding.

"I'm not jealous, Elizabeth. But I can understand why anyone might think so." The arch tone and the haughty head carriage were unreadable.

But then he lifted the hand not carrying the umbrella and case and put it to the nape of his brother's neck. Tugged gently and pulled their heads together in a brief and highly untypical gesture of something mere words could not cover.

"Go sleep and let people who care for you care for you. I will speak to you soon."

The words were little more than a whisper.

"Sentiment, brother? You _are_ slipping. Field work really doesn't agree with you."

"No. That's why I need you," was the reply. Lightly barbed, as usual.

Watching this exchange, John Watson felt something turn over in his heart.

For he had sat next to the older brother as they watched Sherlock with Lady Smallwood.

"John…" the voice next to him was soft and unusually familiar. "Time to absolve you from the challenge I gave you, I think. You now know more than enough. I think we both do. And you have proved yourself."

"Mycroft?"

Davy Gallagher turned away and slid the glass privacy partition closed. George Bradshaw was already back behind the wheel of the Ghost. The doctor and the British Government were alone in the back of the cab.

"I had forgotten what legwork involved. I have been too safe in my Whitehall ivory tower. The last three days have been an education. In very many ways."

He was looking in his brother's direction, but his eyes were turned inwards.

"I thought I knew…." his voice stalled. "I knew nothing. My apologies, John."

"Nothing to apologise for, Mycroft. You did your bit."

"You think?" That familiar thin lipped smile. "I did not ..I don't know….what to do for him. I have been too hard, knowing being hard makes him better. How he expects - needs - that from me. But to see him like this….." He shook his head.

"If he will let you, look after him."

"Already made that promise. I always do."

"Yes. I understand now. How much you look after him. Kill for him. Save the man, save the lives."

"Don't get carried away. He has done more for me than I can ever repay. Me and Mary."

"Yes." Mycroft Holmes turned his head to look at the doctor, face blank. "Another favour, John. When you need him - and you will - let him help you."

"What aren't you telling me?"

He fought to keep down the sudden fear that rose like bile in his throat.

"Nothing. Just…law of averages. Probabilities. He thinks he needs you. Needs to protect you."

"Are you warning me? Or trying to scare me?"

"Neither. Why should I? You should be reassured, rather."

He watched Lady Smallwood unexpectedly slap his brother, without flinching. But moved quickly.

"It seems I must go. Sherlock is outstaying his welcome. Work to do. Paperwork I will see you soon."

And he was out of the cab. Exchanging words John Watson could not hear, offering a comfort, however briefly, the doctor could not recognise as Mycroft Holmes' behaviour. The comfort repulsed was something he did recognise.

Sherlock Holmes dropped into the back seat of the cab bringing cold air and asperity with him.

"Right. Windsor please, Davy. To collect Mrs Watson. "

The cab moved out of the darkness of the courtyard into the twilight of evening and the streets of London. John Watson looked across the slanted light of street lamps.

Sherlock Holmes was pressed deep into the far corner of the seat, looking out of the window. Belstaff collar flipped up. Fingers tapping on a jiggling knee. Face impenetrable.

"Are you OK?"

"You can drop me off at the next traffic lights. I'll walk home."

The cold hauteur was back. It no longer scared John Watson.

"Come with me to collect Mary, as arranged. She'll want to see you. Make sure I haven't let you come to harm."

"She's going to be disappointed."

"More harm than necessary, then." He tried a smile.

Hmn." Which was not returned.

The silence then seemed very long.

"You shouldn't have come after me. You should have stayed asleep. Thank you anyway. You were…..very helpful. You saved Johan Magnussen's life."

Just doing my job."

"And saved my life."

"Just doing my job."

He grinned at Sherlock Holmes. Tried not to show how complimented he felt. For a moment their eyes met, and Sherlock Holmes turned away from the warmth in his friend's gaze.

"I told you. The only person I trust."

"I know. Thank you."

A brisk nod.

"I expect my brother has released you from your quest? Now you know more about me than you would want to?"

From warmth and relaxation, John Watson felt he had just walked into a wall. Sherlock Holmes' defensive wall.

"Sherlock," he began carefully. "Knowing what happened then…makes no difference to how I think of you."

"It does to ME!" The three words emerged loud and high, like lightning on a sunny day. Taken by surprise, John Watson swayed backwards and Davy Gallagher looked with concern into the rear view mirror.

Hands fluttered to the face, "sorry…" whispered quietly. Then:

"Your new knowledge of me will return to haunt you, You can't unlearn it, John. With or without my eidetic memory, you will be repelled. That's what happens, it's natural." He shook his head.

"Returning to school after all that…back to being a child? Ridiculous. William was dead. Sherlock survived. Cauterised. A brain in it's transport."

He smiled sadly, interrupted his friend's attempt to deny.

"Do you know what drag artists do with their genitals when they perform? And how? Well, why should you?" The voice was soft now, dulled, almost hypnotic. "But I do.

"I know how alum aids sexual performance, and why. Herbs and spices. Psychotropic drugs. I know first hand chunks of the Karma Sutra and massage techniques. I know about pain and the power of sex." He sighed. "Kept me alive, sometimes, that knowledge…."

"Did Pedder Magnussen…..use you? Was that why you…."

"Do you know you get extra for selling a virgin? Much in demand. And when the virgin is bleeding so much it is clearly not one, then it is passed to another market. The ones who like to make people bleed. Win-win. No wonder it is a growing trade.

"All the time I was captive I was told what was coming. Who was coming. A Viking. Tall and blonde and handsome. What he would do to me. Imagination and actuality….childish perceptions compared to adult ones….more than twenty years of memory and horror….."

"OK. Stop it."

"Why?. You wanted to know. And now you do. How damaged and deficient I am, how debauched. Best left alone, you see. Why I prefer that. Alone."

"You're not alone."

"Alone protects me."

 _No. Friends protect people. And you protected me….._

"You were a child."

A bark of laughter. "I've never been a child, John. The spare not the heir, the freak not the friend. I was supposed to stand up and be an adult. I failed. "

"You did your best."

"Still failed."

"No-one else would say so. No-one in the fucking world! Your parents, Robin…..all the people you have saved since. Think about them. Or even yourself."

There was a pause. And then a mercurial change of mood.

"Not to worry. Made me what I am. Would I be so useful if I was normal? I doubt it, don't you?"

"Sherlock…."

"No. And I won't talk about it again. Although I daresay my brother will want to pick over the bones. He likes that sort of thing."

o0o0o

She was sitting at reception, waiting for them with her suitcase. Greeted them with laughter, and a lingering and loving hug for her husband while Sherlock Holmes took the suitcase and put it in the cab.

But after that she had a hug for him, as they travelled back to central London she took a small parcel from her handbag and gave it to him without comment.

Something light, long and narrow wrapped in sparkly brown paper, tied with string.

"What's this?" he asked. Resting it in his undamaged hand.

"Open it and see."

Her eyes were dancing. He looked across at John Watson who shrugged and said: "Don't ask me."

So he untied the string and folded back the paper and the bubble wrap. He lifted out a knife. Doubled bladed, about seven inches long, the hilt of blue enamelled steel.

"Toledo. Nineteenth century," he said, categorising. After what had happened with Enrico Baldissi's misericorda John Watson was alert to the shudder that ran through him, which he covered with a little movement and a cough.

 _Mary didn't know. She could not know! An assassin's weapon….._

"I saw this beautiful paperknife in a Windsor antique shop yesterday, and thought of you. Your birthday. Belated I know, but….happy birthday, Sherlock!"

She turned in her seat, awkward with lack of space and baby bump, put her arms round him, kissed his cheek and his brow. Used to his denial of emotional response, she was unaffected by his silent and frigid reaction. She put a gentle thumb to the split lips.

"And also a thank you for keeping me - us - safe. I don't know what happened to you the last few days, but I can see it was bad." She touched the broken knuckles, waited for a reply she did not really expect, but saw the conflict in his eyes. "Do you want me to kill someone for you?" she asked. A joke to lighten his mood, to make him laugh.

But he turned away from her. Avoided her husband's eyes and empathy

"Thank you," he said. "A very thoughtful gift."

He said nothing more. Allowed the Watsons to chatter together.

He felt exhausted. Dislocated. Invisible. In pain. Looked at the ornate knife in his hands and touched the blade.

"I will treasure this," he said. But so quietly his companions did not hear him above their animated conversation.

When Davy Gallagher halted the cab outside the Watson's blue front door the married couple tumbled out together like puppies, laughing and fumbling for house keys and hand luggage. While Sherlock Holmes lifted out the large suitcase, hoisted his own duffle bag onto his shoulder.

Watched the householders pick up mail from behind the door, switch on lights, draw curtains. So ordinary. So normal. The humdrum everyday he had fought for. For these people he loved, despite himself.

"Come in, Sherlock," John Watson turned back to him, held out a hand. "We'll get the flat warm, order a meal in. Stay with us and share. Stay the night?"

"I….I must settle up with Davy," he said. Backing away.

Offered notes through the window to their driver.

"It needed to come out," Davy Gallagher said into the air. "Tomorrow it will feel better. A load lifted. Clean slate, Sherlock."

"If you say so. If that's how it feels for you," he said, still the acid side of acceptance. "When do you get your own cab back?"

"Day after tomorrow."

"Collect me mid morning tomorrow. I need to go to Bart's." He did not say he needed to go to Molly for tests. For her calmness and sanity. And whether, if she asked about his discomfort and his visible injuries, he might tell her. Perhaps.

"Nothing's changed, has it? Even after all that. Tried to tell you before. See you later then, mate."

Gallagher sketched a wave and drove away. Certainly nothing about him had changed, Sherlock Holmes reflected. But then, Corporal Gallagher had always known. And shared rehab and reinvention many years later.

He stood and watched the cab drive away. Turned. John Watson was hovering in the doorway of the flat, a steady silhouette. He ignored it. Took two steps along the pavement, out of the doctor's line of vision.

"Sherlock!"

John Watson came out of the house, to the end of the little buffer garden. The presence made Sherlock Holmes pause.

"Oscillating on the pavement, John?" he asked with an attempt at lightness.

"Please come in. Please stay."

"Go back to your wife. Be a family."

"You are part of our family. You tosser."

"In that case three is a crowd. "

"Stop it. Stop walking away."

"I am only going home. I am tired, need sleep."

"You need company that's not the inside of your own head. It's been a bad few days. Sleep here."

He did not say that he did not need company. That he did not need take away, or birthday wishes, or cosy communication.

"Too much to do. Have to be at Bart's in the morning. See Mycroft, Lady Smallwood. Attempt to interview the Ghanian. Pick up on cases. Life goes on."

"You didn't tell me you had a birthday. "

"Why should I? I don't celebrate it."

"How did Mary know? When I didn't?"

"Mary was a spy and an assassin. Secrets come naturally to her. You are just a good man. It's not the same mindset."

"Was that a compliment?"

"Of course."

A smile was shared between them A smile John Watson was determined to hold on to.

"Are you OK?"

"Of course. Fine."

"If I asked you again to stay, would you drug me?"

"The same trick again? When you are expecting it? I don't think so." He shrugged and dug his hands deep into the pockets of the Belstaff. Drifted backwards out of arm's reach.

"I must go."

He turned again and began to walk away, conscious of John Watson's eyes on him, conscious of words neither had said. After five steps, John Watson's voice drifted through silent air towards him.

"Baker Street is the other way."

He ignored it. and kept walking.

"I said….."

And he was out of earshot.

John Watson watched the implacable figure walk away from him. And in the wrong direction.

Collar up, shoulders strong and square. Watched the right hand fumble into the upper side pocket, emerge holding something. Even with the distance between them he heard the double popping sound of a blister pack, of tablets taken to the lips and swallowed dry.

He watched and doubted it was paracetamol. Sighed and felt old and depressed.

 _The cat that walked on it's own._

 _The angry ghost of a genius…._

 _Alone protects me….._

"John? What shall we order to eat….?" the voice drifted out to reach him.

"Coming!"

Cold suddenly, he hurried back into the house. Tomorrow was another day, and there would be things to do. With Sherlock.

The solitary man in the long dark coat walked away, ears closed to all but the sound of his own footsteps.

The Adventurer's Club for an energising and cleansing swim and food and perhaps interesting conversation. Maggie Driscoll. Mycroft. Dark communication for dark hours. Paperwork. An interview with a Ghanian, the only survivor of Appledore.

Files from the secret room at CAM Media labelled Charlemagne. Labelled Peter The Great. Files not about famous people and their secrets this time. Files about ordinary victims and their suffering.

Sleep was not as important as opening those files, solving the puzzles, bringing justice and absolution to so many. Oblivion has always been the most trustworthy guardian of classified files: Mycroft had often reminded him of that quote. And now he would prove and explode it.

He had gone into this unexpected case without any choice. That - or death in Eastern Europe. Seeking oblivion and finality in penance for murder. Another murder had occurred. Suffering for that was meant to be cleansing but was just more pain, more self justification .Pain and degradation that ultimately did not matter, because the end justified the means. Knowing oblivion cured old wounds. That dark and absolute oblivion brings utter peace, or so he had thought.

 _The things an eidetic memory remembered…_

" _Oblivion is the dark page, whereon Memory writes her light-beam characters, and makes them legible: were it all light, nothing could be read there, any more than if it were all darkness."_

Thomas Carlyle had said that. He also said _"A man lives by believing in something."_ That would do.

Light had been shone into dark corners. Fate had been defied and defeated. Other people had provided faith and friendship. Told him so, in words and more.

And closer, fonder, others now claimed him and placed him within their family.

 _You can't choose your family, you can only choose your friends._

But friends had chosen him as their family. What would that be like? Being in a real and loving family? To a lonely creature who only knew how to be alone, had had his deepest scars exposed - and then be told they did not matter? That the worst of him was not the worst he could be… or could have been.

 _That would do. It would more than do._

Restore a soul. Paths of righteousness. Through the valley of death. Fear no evil.

His steps checked, stopped. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and felt the tension across his shoulders release.

 _Weeping may tarry for the night time, but joy shall come in the morning._

Not for the first time, he cursed his public school education, his eidetic memory, all that had shaped him.

 _Nobody made me. I made me._

He looked up at the stars above him, at the silent London street surrounding him. Resumed walking.

 _Back to work….._

THE END

 **Author's Notes:**

'Looking left - looking right: Recognised physical tells by eye movement of mental process and the motivations behind them. Accepted with the theory of Neuro Linguistic Programming in 1972.

Kittul Batal: In Sinhalese this means a low caste village near palm trees

Namaste: Asian form of greeting, hands together, head bowed, speech and gesture. To be answered with 'sukhim bhava' - be happy.

Henna tattoos: artwork classical designs painted onto the hands face and feet of a bride before her wedding, in either red or black. Lesser temporary tattoos also seen for other celebrations. Known as Mehndi.

Tuk-tuk: Small Asian motorised taxi cum rickshaw. Cheap, nippy and popular.

Karma Sutra: A Hindu life manual best know for it's detailed sexual content.

Weeping may tarry for the night time, but joy shall come in the morning: Psalm 30

And so we reach the end. I could have written this to carry 40 chapters, as in _Things We Lost In The Flames,_ but wanted a different style of story in a shorter timeframe and length, something snappier and less internalised, to reflect Sherlock's rapid and insular actions throughout this story arc.

Thank you for reading, following and reviewing, all the thousands of you. I wrote this purely in response to readers who had wanted to see more of my OC's, Davy and George, Piet, Christina and all. So here they are again in more detail. Old friends by now!

This story is just one possible explanation for Sherlock's complex personality and his unique interaction with family and friends. Having achieved a framework that met the circumstances and character tells, I chose Sri Lanka as the setting for catastrophic past events as a place where civil war had run for many years and so would not pin the action down to one specific time, and where aspects of the culture provided appropriate but more unusual scope and setting and circumstance.

Should you read this and feel Sherlock's reaction to events of more than twenty years earlier are extreme, then you need to get out more and learn some of the harsher realities of life. Reassess your own reactions to sick or psycho Sherlock fanfic, why you read or write it, and then consider how it may affect others, as well as how much this reveals about you. "Only fanfic" is no excuse, for it may be an AU bubble of it's own, but it is still open to public consumption.

You may think this is some sort of personal attack, or I am being ridiculously prissy. Why should you? I have simply been a professional writer for too many years, sat in too many court cases and listened to too many wretched testimonies to not know what I am talking about. There is always hope, however. But the truth is that sexual abuse never leaves the victim's self or soul. It is trauma not titillation.

While human trafficking, domestic rape and child sex rings sadly and disgracefully continue to proliferate around the world.

Read Edward St Aubyn's five _Patrick Melrose_ novels. Brave the autobiography of classical pianist James Rhodes (I _nstrumental,_ Canongate 2015) And be educated, inspired and humbled by his story.

So this work of fiction is dedicated to the inspiration of James Rhodes, his survival, and the wonderful music he makes.

And that's all she wrote.


End file.
